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HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS,  NEW  YORK 


PUERTA    DEL    SOL GATE    OF    THE    SUN — TOLEDO 


FAMILIAR 
SPANISH   TRAVELS 


W.      D.      HOWELLS 


ILLUSTRATED 


HARPER   6-   BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

NEW   YORK   AND   LONDON 

M  C  M  XI  I  I 


TTNTVFJRSIT\    '  >  7  CALIFORNIA 


COPYRIGHT.    1913.    BY    HARPER   A    BROTHERS 


PRINTED   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES   OF   AMERICA 
PUBLISHED    OCTOBER.     1913 


TO 
M      H. 


20-16506 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL  APPROACHES 1 

II.  SAN  SEBASTIAN  AND  BEAUTIFUL  BISCAY 8 

III.  BURGOS  AND  THE  BITTER  COLD  OF  BURGOS       ...  31 

IV.  THE  VARIETY  OF  VALLADOLID 53 

V.  PHASES  OF  MADRID 81 

VI.  A  NIGHT  AND  DAY  IN  TOLEDO 124 

VII.  THE  GREAT  GRIDIRON  OF  ST.  LAWRENCE      ....  150 

VIII.  CORDOVA  AND  THE  WAY  THERE 165 

IX.  FIRST  DAYS  IN  SEVILLE       196 

X.  SEVILLIAN  ASPECTS  AND  INCIDENTS 226 

XI.  To  AND  IN  GRANADA       267 

XII.  THE  SURPRISES  OF  RONDA 296 

XIII.  ALGECIRAS  AND  TABIFA  .                  311 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PUERTA  DEL  SOL — GATE  OF  THE  SUN — TOLEDO  ....  Frontispiece 
THE  CASINO,  SAN  SEBASTIAN,  LOOKS  OUT  UPON  THE 

CURVING  CONCHA  AND  THE  BLUE  BAY Facing  p.  12 

THE  SEA  SWEEPS  INLAND  IN  A  CIRCLE  OF  BLUE,  TO  FORM 

THE  ENTRANCE  TO  THE  HARBOR,  SAN  SEBASTIAN  "  18 
GROUPS  OF  WOMEN  ON  THEIR  KNEES  BEATING  CLOTHES 

IN  THE  WATER "  32 

THE  IRON-GRAY  BULK  OF  THE  CATHEDRAL  REARS  ITSELF 

FROM  CLUSTERING  WALLS  AND  ROOFS "  34 

THE  TOMB  OF  DONNA  MARIA  MANUEL "  42 

A  BURGOS  STREET "  48 

A  STREET  LEADING  TO  THE  CATHEDRAL "  62 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VALLADOLID "  66 

CHURCH  OF  SAN  PABLO "  70 

THE  HOUSE  IN  WHICH  PHILIP  II.  WAS  BORN  ....  "  74 

PUERTA  DEL  SOL,  MADRID  "  88 

THE  BULL-RING,  MADRID "  92 

GUARD-MOUNT  IN  THE  PLAZA  DE  ARMAS,  ROYAL  PALACE, 

MADRID "  114 

RICHES  OF  GRAY  ROOF  AND  WHITE  WALL  MARK  ITS  IN- 

8URPASSABLE  ANTIQUITY "  130 

AN  ANCIENT  CORNER  OF  THE  CITY "  138 

THE  BRIDGE  ACROSS  THE  YELLOW  TAGUS "  142 

THE  TOWN  AND  MONASTERY  OF  ESCORIAL "  154 

THE  PANTHEON  OF  THE  KINGS  AND  QUEENS  OF  SPAIN, 

UNDER  THE  HIGH  ALTAR  OF  THE  CHURCH,  ESCORIAL  "  160 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  ANCIENT  CITY  OP  CORDOVA Facing  p.  180 

THE  BELL-TOWER  OF  THE  GREAT  MOSQUE,  CORDOVA  .  "  184 

GATEWAY  OF  THE  BRIDGE,  CORDOVA "  1QQ 

IN  ATTITUDES  OF  SILENT  DEVOTION "  210 

THE  CATHEDRAL  AND  TOWER  OF  THE  GIRALDA  ....  "  214 
ANCIENT  ROMAN  COLUMNS  LIFTING  ALOFT  THE  FIGURES 

OF  HERCULES  AND  C.ESAR "  218 

GARDENS  OF  THE  ALCAZAR "  230 

THE  COURT  OF  FLAGS  AND  TOWER  OF  THE  GIRALDA  .  .  "  244 
THE  GATE  OF  JUSTICE.  PRINCIPAL  ENTRANCE  TO  THE 

ALHAMBRA "  274 

THE  COURT  OF  THE  LIONS "  278 

LOOKING  NORTHWEST  FROM  THE  GENERALIFE  OVER 

GRANADA ,  .  ,  *  .  .  "  290 

LOOKING  ACROSS  THE  NEW  BRIDGE  (300  FEET  HIGH) 

OVER  THE  GUADALAVIAR  GORGE,  RONDA  ....  "  304 

VIEW  OF  ALGECIRAS  "  312 


FAMILIAE    SPANISH   TEAVELS 


- 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

I 

AUTOBIOGKAPHICAL   APPKOACHES 


As  the  train  took  its  time  and  ours  in  mounting  the 
uplands  toward  Granada  on  the  soft,  but  not  too  soft, 
evening  of  November  6,  1911,  the  air  that  came  to  me 
through  the  open  window  breathed  as  if  from  an  au 
tumnal  night  of  the  middle  eighteen-fifties  in  a  little 
village  of  northeastern  Ohio.  I  was  now  going  to  see, 
for  the  first  time,  the  city  where  so  great  a  part  of  my 
life  was  then  passed,  and  in  this  magical  air  the  two 
epochs  were  blent  in  reciprocal  association.  The  ques 
tion  of  my  present  identity  was  a  thing  indifferent  and 
apart;  it  did  not  matter  who  or  where  or  when  I  was. 
Youth  and  age  were  at  one  with  each  other:  the  boy 
abiding  in  the  old  man,  and  the  old  man  pensively  will 
ing  to  dwell  for  the  enchanted  moment  in  any  vantage 
of  .the  past  which  would  give  him  shelter. 

In  that  dignified  and  deliberate  Spanish  train  I  was 
a  man  of  seventy-four  crossing  the  last  barrier  of  hills 
that  helped  keep  Granada  from  her  conquerors,  and  at 
the  same  time  I  was  a  boy  of  seventeen  in  the  little 
room  under  the  stairs  in  a  house  now  practically  remoter 

1 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

than  the  Alhambra,  finding  my  unguided  way  through 
some  Spanish  story  of  the  vanished  kingdom  of  the 
Moors.  The  little  room  which  had  structurally  ceased 
fifty  years  before  from  the  house  that  ceased  to  he  home 
even  longer  ago  had  returned  to  the  world  with  me  in 
it,  and  fitted  perfectly  into  the  first-class  railway  com 
partment  which  my  luxury  had  provided  for  it.  From 
its  window  I  saw  through  the  car  window  the  olive 
groves  and  white  cottages  of  the  Spanish  peasants,  and 
the  American  apple  orchards  and  meadows  stretching 
to  the  primeval  woods  that  walled  the  drowsing  village 
round.  Then,  as  the  night  deepened  with  me  at  my 
book,  the  train  slipped  slowly  from  the  hills,  and  the 
moon,  leaving  the  Ohio  village  wholly  in  the  dark,  shone 
over  the  roofs  and  gardens  of  Granada,  and  I  was  no 
longer  a  boy  of  seventeen,  but  altogether  a  man  of 
seventy-four. 

I  do  not  say  the  experience  was  so  explicit  as  all 
this;  no  experience  so  mystical  could  be  so  explicit; 
and  perhaps  what  was  intimated  to  me  in  it  was  only 
that  if  I  sometime  meant  to  ask  some  gentle  reader's 
company  in  a  retrospect  of  my  Spanish  travels,  I  had 
better  be  honest  with  him  and  own  at  the  beginning 
that  passion  for  Spanish  things  which  was  the  ruling 
passion  of  my  boyhood ;  I  had  better  confess  that,  how 
ever  unrequited,  it  held  me  in  the  eager  bondage  of  a 
lover  still,  so  that  I  never  wished  to  escape  from  it,  but 
must  try  to  hide  the  fact  whenever  the  real  Spain  fell 
below  the  ideal,  however  I  might  reason  with  my  in 
fatuation  or  try  to  scoff  it  away.  It  had  once  been  so 
inextinguishable  a  part  of  me  that  the  record  of  my 
journey  must  be  more  or  less  autobiographical;  and 
though  I  should  decently  endeavor  to  keep  my  past  out 
of  it,  perhaps  I  should  not  try  very  hard  and  should 
not  alwavs  succeed. 


AUTOBIOGKAPHICAL    APPROACHES 


Just  when  this  passion  began  in  me  I  should  not 
be  able  to  say ;  but  probably  it  was  with  my  first  read 
ing  of  Don  Quixote  in  the  later  eighteen-forties.  I 
would  then  have  been  ten  or  twelve  years  old;  and,  of 
course,  I  read  that  incomparable  romance,  not  only 
greatest,  but  sole  of  its  kind,  in  English.  The  purpose 
of  some  time  reading  it  in  Spanish  and  then  the  pur 
pose  of  some  time  writing  the  author's  life  grew  in 
me  with  my  growing  years  so  strongly  that,  though  I 
have  never  yet  done  either  and  probably  never  shall, 
I  should  not  despair  of  doing  both  if  I  lived  to  be  a 
hundred.  In  the  mean  time  my  wandering  steps  had 
early  chanced  upon  a  Spanish  grammar,  and  I  had 
begun  those  inquiries  in  it  which  were  based  upon  a 
total  ignorance  of  English  accidence.  I  do  not  remem 
ber  how  I  felt  my  way  from  it  to  such  reading  of  the 
language  as  has  endeared  Spanish  literature  to  me.  It 
embraced  something  of  everything:  literary  and  polit 
ical  history,  drama,  poetry,  fiction;  but  it  never  con 
descended  to  the  exigencies  of  common  parlance.  These 
exigencies  did  not  exist  for  me  in  my  dreams  of  seeing 
Spain  which  were  not  really  expectations.  It  was  not 
until  half  a  century  later,  when  my  longing  became  a 
hope  and  then  a  purpose,  that  I  foreboded  the  need  of 
practicable  Spanish.  Then  I  invoked  the  help  of  a 
young  professor,  who  came  to  me  for  an  hour  each  day 
of  a  week  in  London  and  let  me  try  to  talk  with  him ; 
but  even  then  I  accumulated  so  little  practicable  Span 
ish  that  my  first  hour,  almost  my  first  moment  in  Spain, 
exhausted  my  store.  My  professor  was  from  Barcelona, 
but  he  beautifully  lisped  his  c's  and  z's  like  any  old 
Castilian,  when  he  might  have  hissed  them  in  the  ac- 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

cent  of  his  native  Catalan ;  and  there  is  no  telling  how 
much  I  might  have  profited  by  his  instruction  if  he  had 
not  been  such  a  charming  intelligence  that  I  liked  to 
talk  with  him  of  literature  and  philosophy  and  politics 
rather  than  the  weather,  or  the  cost  of  things,  or  the 
question  of  how  long  the  train  stopped  and  when  it 
would  start,  or  the  dishes  at  table,  or  clothes  at  the 
tailor's,  or  the  forms  of  greeting  and  parting.  If  he  did 
not  equip  me  with  the  useful  colloquial  phrases,  the 
fault  was  mine;  and  the  misfortune  was  doubly  mine 
when  from  my  old  acquaintance  with  Italian  (glib  half- 
sister  of  the  statelier  Spanish)  the  Italian  phrases  would 
thrust  forward  as  the  equivalent  of  the  English  words 
I  could  not  always  think  of.  The  truth  is,  then,  that 
I  was  not  perfect  in  my  Spanish  after  quite  six  weeks 
in  Spain;  and  if  in  the  course  of  his  travels  with  me 
the  reader  finds  me  flourishing  Spanish  idioms  in  his 
face  he  may  safely  attribute  them  less  to  my  speaking 
than  my  reading  knowledge ;  probably  I  never  employed 
them  in  conversation.  That  reading  was  itself  without 
order  or  system,  and  I  am  not  sure  but  it  had  better 
been  less  than  more.  Yet  who  knows  ?  The  days,  or 
the  nights  of  the  days,  in  the  eighteen-fifties  went 
quickly,  as  quickly  as  the  years  go  now,  and  it  would 
have  all  come  to  the  present  pass  whether  that  blind 
devotion  to  an  alien  literature  had  cloistered  my  youth 
or  not. 

I  do  not  know  how,  with  the  merciful  make  I  am 
of,  I  should  then  have  cared  so  little,  or  else  ignored  so 
largely  the  cruelties  I  certainly  knew  that  the  Span 
iards  had  practised  in  the  conquests  of  Mexico  and 
Peru.  I  knew  of  these  things,  and  my  heart  was  with 
the  Incas  and  the  Aztecs,  and  yet  somehow  I  could  not 
punish  the  Spaniards  for  their  atrocious  destruction  of 
the  only  American  civilizations.  As  nearly  as  I  can 


AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL    APPROACHES 

now  say,  I  was  of  both  sides,  and  wistful  to  reconcile 
them,  though  I  do  not  see  now  how  it  could  have  been 
done;  and  in  my  later  hopes  for  the  softening  of  the 
human  conditions  I  have  found  it  hard  to  forgive 
Pizarro  for  the  overthrow  of  the  most  perfectly  social 
ized  state  known  to  history.  I  scarcely  realized  the 
base  ingratitude  of  the  Spanish  sovereigns  to  Columbus, 
and  there  were  vast  regions  of  history  that  I  had  not 
penetrated  till  long  afterward  in  pursuit  of  Spanish 
perfidy  and  inhumanity,  as  in  their  monstrous  misrule 
of  Holland.  When  it  came  in  those  earlier  days  to  a 
question  of  sides  between  the  Spaniards  and  the  Moors, 
as  Washington  Irving  invited  my  boyhood  to  take  it  in 
his  chronicle  of  the  conquest  of  Granada,  I  experienced 
on  a  larger  scale  my  difficulty  in  the  case  of  the  Mexi 
cans  and  Peruvians.  The  case  of  these  had  been  re 
ported  to  me  in  the  school-readers,  but  here,  now,  was 
an  affair  submitted  to  the  mature  judgment  of  a  boy 
of  twelve,  and  yet  I  felt  as  helpless  as  I  was  at  ten. 
Will  it  be  credited  that  at  seventy-four  I  am  still  often 
in  doubt  which  side  I  should  have  had  win,  though  I 
used  to  fight  on  both?  Since  the  matter  was  settled 
more  than  four  hundred  years  ago,  I  will  not  give  the 
reasons  for  my  divided  allegiance.  They  would  hardly 
avail  now  to  reverse  the  tragic  fate  of  the  Moors,  and  if 
I  try  I  cannot  altogether  wish  to  reverse  it.  Whatever 
Spanish  misrule  has  been  since  Islam  was  overthrown 
in  Granada,  it  has  been  the  error  of  law,  and  the  rule 
of  Islam  at  the  best  had  always  been  the  effect  of  per 
sonal  will,  the  caprice  of  despots  high  and  low,  the 
unstatuted  sufferance  of  slaves,  high  and  low.  The 
gloomiest  and  cruelest  error  of  Inquisitional  Spain  was 
nobler,  with  its  adoration  of  ideal  womanhood,  than  the 
Mohammedan  state  with  its  sensual  dreams  of  Paradise. 

I  will  not  pretend  (as  I  very  well  might,  and  as  I 

5 


FAMILIAE    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

perhaps  ought)  that  I  thought  of  these  things,  all  or 
any,  as  our  train  began  to  slope  rather  more  rapidly 
toward  Granada,  and  to  find  its  way  under  the  rising 
moon  over  the  storied  Vega.  I  will  as  little  pretend 
that  my  attitude  toward  Spain  was  ever  that  of  the  im 
partial  observer  after  I  crossed  the  border  of  that  en 
chanted  realm  where  we  all  have  our  castles.  I  have 
thought  it  best  to  be  open  with  the  reader  here  at  the 
beginning,  and  I  would  not,  if  T  could,  deny  him  the 
pleasure  of  doubting  my  word  or  disabling  my  judg 
ment  at  any  point  he  likes.  In  return  I  shall  only 
ask  his  patience  when  I  strike  too  persistently  the 
chord  of  autobiography.  That  chord  is  part  of  the 
harmony  between  the  boy  and  the  old  man  who  made 
my  Spanish  journey  together,  and  were  always  accus 
ing  themselves,  the  first  of  dreaming  and  the  last  of 
doddering :  perhaps  with  equal  justice.  Is  there  really 
much  difference  between  the  two? 


ii 

It  was  fully  a  month  before  that  first  night  in 
Granada  that  I  arrived  in  Spain  after  some  sixty 
years'  delay.  During  this  period  I  had  seen  almost 
every  other  interesting  country  in  Europe.  I  had 
lived  five  or  six  years  in  Italy;  I  had  been  several 
months  in  Germany;  and  a  fortnight  in  Holland;  I 
had  sojourned  often  in  Paris;  I  had  come  and  gone  a 
dozen  times  in  England  and  lingered  long  each  time; 
and  yet  I  had  never  once  visited  the  land  of  my  de 
votion.  I  had  often  wondered  at  this,  it  was  so  wholly 
involuntary,  and  I  had  sometimes  suffered  from  the 
surprise  of  those  who  knew  of  my  passion  for  Spain, 
and  kept  finding  out  my  dereliction,  alleging  the  Sud- 


AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL    APPROACHES 

Express  to  Madrid  as  something  that  left  me  without 
excuse.  The  very  summer  before  last  I  got  so  far  on 
the  way  in  London  as  to  buy  a  Spanish  phrase-book 
full  of  those  inopportune  conversations  with  landlords, 
tailors,  ticket-sellers,  and  casual  acquaintance  or  agree 
able  strangers.  Yet  I  returned  once  more  to  America 
with  my  desire,  which  was  turning  into  a  duty,  un 
fulfilled;  and  when  once  more  I  sailed  for  Europe 
in  1911  it  was  more  with  foreboding  of  another  fail 
ure  than  a  prescience  of  fruition  in  my  inveterate 
longing.  Even  after  that  boldly  decisive  week  of  the 
professor  in  London  I  had  my  doubts  and  my  self- 
doubts.  There  were  delays  at  London,  delays  at  Paris, 
delays  at  Tours;  and  when  at  last  we  crossed  the 
Pyrenees  and  I  found  myself  in  Spain,  it  was  with 
an  incredulity  which  followed  me  throughout  and 
lingered  with  me  to  the  end.  "  Is  this  truly  Spain, 
and  am  I  actually  there  ?"  the  thing  kept  asking  it 
self ;  and  it  asks  itself  still,  in  terms  that  fit  the  ac 
complished  fact. 


II 

SAN  SEBASTIAN  AND  BEAUTIFUL  BISCAY 

EVEN  at  Irun,  where  we  arrived  in  Spain  from 
Bayonne,  there  began  at  once  to  be  temperamental 
differences  which  ought  to  have  wrought  against  my 
weird  misgivings  of  my  whereabouts.  Only  in  Spain 
could  a  customs  inspector  have  felt  of  one  tray  in  our 
trunks  and  then  passed  them  all  with  an  air  of  such 
jaded  aversion  from  an  employ  uncongenial  to  a  gen 
tleman.  Perhaps  he  was  also  loath  to  attempt  any 
inquiry  in  that  Desperanto  of  French,  English,  and 
Spanish  which  raged  around  us;  but  the  porter  to 
whom  we  had  fallen,  while  I  hesitated  at  our  carriage 
door  whether  I  should  summon  him  as  M ozo  or  Usted, 
was  master  of  that  lingua  franca  and  recovered  us 
from  the  customs  without  question  on  our  part,  and 
understood  everything  we  could  not  say.  I  like  to 
think  he  was  a  Basque,  because  I  like  the  Basques  so 
much  for  no  reason  that  I  can  think  of.  Their  being 
always  Carlists  would  certainly  be  no  reason  with  me, 
for  I  was  never  a  Carlist;  and  perhaps  my  liking  is 
only  a  prejudice  in  their  favor  from  the  air  of  thrift 
and  work  which  pervades  their  beautiful  province,  or 
is  an  effect  of  their  language  as  I  first  saw  it  inscribed 
on  the  front  of  the  Credit  Lyonnais  at  Bayonne.  It 
looked  so  beautifully  regular,  so  scholarly,  so  Latin, 
so  sister  to  both  Spanish  and  Italian,  so  richly  and 
musically  voweled,  and  yet  remained  so  impenetrable 
to  the  most  daring  surmise,  that  I  conceived  at 


SAN     SEBASTIAN    AND    BEAUTIFUL    BISCAY 

once  a  profound  admiration  for  the  race  which  could 
keep  such  a  language  to  itself.  When  I  remembered 
how  blond,  how  red-blond  our  sinewy  young  porter 
was,  I  could  not  well  help  breveting  him  of  that  race, 
and  honoring  him  because  he  could  have  read  those 
words  with  the  eyes  that  were  so  blue  amid  the  general 
Spanish  blackness  of  eyes.  He  imparted  a  quiet  from 
his  own  calm  to  our  nervousness,  and  if  we  had  ap 
pealed  to  him  on  the  point  I  am  sure  he  would  have 
saved  us  from  the  error  of  breakfasting  in  the  station 
restaurant  at  the  deceitful  table  d'hote,,  though  where 
else  we  should  have  breakfasted  I  do  not  know. 


One  train  left  for  San  Sebastian  while  I  was  still 
lost  in  amaze  that  what  I  had  taken  into  my  mouth 
for  fried  egg  should  be  inwardly  fish  and  full  of 
bones;  but  he  quelled  my  anxiety  with  the  assurance, 
which  I  somehow  understood,  that  there  would  be 
another  train  soon.  In  the  mean  time  there  were  most 
acceptable  Spanish  families  all  about,  affably  con 
versing  together,  and  freely  admitting  to  their  con 
versation  the  children,  who  so  publicly  abound  in  Spain, 
and  the  nurses  who  do  nothing  to  prevent  their  pub 
licity.  There  were  already  the  typical  fat  Spanish 
mothers  and  lean  fathers,  with  the  slender  daughters, 
who,  in  the  tradition  of  Spanish  good-breeding,  kept 
their  black  eyes  to  themselves,  or  only  lent  them  to 
the  spectators  in  furtive  glances.  Both  older  and 
younger  ladies  wore  the  scanty  Egyptian  skirt  of 
Occidental  civilization,  lurking  or  perking  in  deep- 
drooping  or  high-raking  hats,  though  already  here  and 
there  was  the  mantilla,  which  would  more  and  more 

prevail  as  we  went  southward ;  older  and  younger,  they 

9 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

were  all  painted  and  powdered  to  the  favor  that  Span 
ish  women  everywhere  come  to. 

When  the  bad  breakfast  was  over,  and  the  waiters 
were  laying  the  table  for  another  as  bad,  our  Basque 
porter  came  in  and  led  us  to  the  train  for  San  Sebas 
tian  which  he  had  promised  us.  It  was  now  raining 
outside,  and  we  were  glad  to  climb  into  our  apart 
ment  without  at  all  seeing  what  Irun  was  or  was  not 
like.  But  we  thought  well  of  the  place  because  we 
first  experienced  there  the  ample  ease  of  a  Spanish 
car.  In  Spain  the  railroad  gauge  is  five  feet  six 
inches;  and  this  car  of  ours  was  not  only  very  spa 
cious,  but  very  clean,  while  the  French  cars  that  had 
brought  us  from  Bordeaux  to  Bayonne  and  from  Bay- 
onne  to  Irun  were  neither.  I  do  not  say  all  French 
cars  are  dirty,  or  all  Spanish  cars  are  as  clean  as  they 
are  spacious.  The  cars  of  both  countries  are  hard  to 
get  into,  by  steep  narrow  footholds  worse  even  than  our 
flights  of  steps;  in  fact,  the  English  cars  are  the  only 
ones  I  know  which  are  easy  of  access.  But  these  have 
not  the  ample  racks  for  hand-bags  which  the  Spanish 
companies  provide  for  travelers  willing  to  take  advan 
tage  of  their  trust  by  transferring  much  of  their  heavy 
stuff  to  them.  Without  owning  that  we  were  such 
travelers,  I  find  this  the  place  to  say  that,  with  the 
allowance  of  a  hundred  and  thirty-two  pounds  free, 
our  excess  baggage  in  two  large  steamer-trunks  did  not 
cost  us  three  dollars  in  a  month's  travel,  with  many 
detours,  from  Irun  in  the  extreme  north  to  Algeciras 
in  the  extreme  south  of  Spain. 


n 

But  in  this  sordid  detail  I  am  Keeping  the  reader 
from  the  scenery.     It  had  been   growing  miore  and 

10 


SAN     SEBASTIAN    AND    BEAUTIFUL    BISCAY 

more  striking  ever  since  we  began  climbing  into  the 
Pyrenees  from  Bayonne;  but  upon  the  whole  it  was 
not  so  sublime  as  it  was  beautiful.  There  were  some 
steep,  sharp  peaks,  but  mostly  there  were  grassy  val 
leys  with  white  cattle  grazing  in  them,  and  many  fields 
of  Indian  corn,  endearingly  homelike.  This  at  least 
is  mainly  the  trace  that  the  scenery  as  far  as  Irun  has 
left  among  my  notes;  and  after  Irun  there  is  record 
of  more  and  more  corn.  There  was,  in  fact,  more  corn 
than  anything  else,  though  there  were  many  orchards, 
also  endearingly  homelike,  with  apples  yellow  and 
red  showing  among  the  leaves  still  green  on  the  trees; 
if  there  had  been  something  more  wasteful  in  the 
farming  it  would  have  been  still  more  homelike,  but 
a  traveler  cannot  have  everything.  The  hillsides  were 
often  terraced,  as  in  Italy,  and  the  culture  apparent 
ly  close  and  conscientious.  The  farmhouses  looked 
friendly  and  comfortable;  at  places  the  landscape  was 
molested  by  some  sort  of  manufactories  which  could 
not  conceal  their  tall  chimneys,  though  they  kept  the 
secret  of  their  industry.  They  were  never,  really,  very 
bad,  and  I  would  have  been  willing  to  let  them  pass 
for  fulling-mills,  such  as  I  was  so  familiar  with  in 
Don  Quixote,  if  I  had  thought  of  these  in  time.  But 
one  ought  to  be  honest  at  any  cost,  and  I  must  own 
that  the  Spain  I  was  now  for  the  first  time  seeing 
with  every-day  eyes  was  so  little  like  the  Spain  of  my 
boyish  vision  that  I  never  once  recurred  to  it.  That 
was  a  Spain  of  cork-trees,  of  groves  by  the  green  mar 
gins  of  mountain  brooks,  of  habitable  hills,  where 
shepherds  might  feed  their  flocks  and  mad  lovers  and 
maids  forlorn  might  wander  and  maunder;  and  here 
were  fields  of  corn  and  apple  orchards  and  vineyards 
reddening  and  yellowing  up  to  the  doors  of  those 

comfortable   farmhouses,    with   nowhere   the    sign    of 
2  11 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

a  Christian  cavalier  or  a  turbaned  Infidel.  As  a  man 
I  could  not  help  liking  what  I  saw,  but  I  could  also 
grieve  for  the  boy  who  would  have  been  so  disap 
pointed  if  he  had  come  to  the  Basque  provinces  of 
Spain  when  he  was  from  ten  to  fifteen  years  old,  in 
stead  of  seventy-four. 

It  took  our  train  nearly  an  hour  to  get  by  twenty 
miles  of  those  pleasant  farms  and  the  pretty  hamlets 
which  they  now  and  then  clustered  into.  But  that 
was  fast  for  a  Spanish  way-train,  which  does  not  run, 
but,  as  it  were,  walks  with  dignity  and  makes  long  stops 
at  stations,  to  rest  and  let  the  locomotive  roll  itself  a 
cigarette.  By  the  time  we  reached  San  Sebastian  our 
rain  had  thickened  to  a  heavy  downpour,  and  by  the 
time  we  mounted  to  our  rooms,  three  pair  up  in  the 
hotel,  it  was  storming  in  a  fine  fury  over  the  bay  under 
them,  and  sweeping  the  curving  quays  and  tossing  the 
feathery  foliage  of  the  tamarisk-shaded  promenade. 
The  distinct  advantage  of  our  lofty  perch  was  the 
splendid  sight  of  the  tempest,  held  from  doing  its  worst 
by  the  mighty  headlands  standing  out  to  sea  on  the 
right  and  left.  But  our  rooms  were  cold  with  the 
stony  cold  of  the  south  when  it  is  cooling  off  from  its 
summer,  and  we  shivered  in  the  splendid  sight. 


in 

The  inhabitants  of  San  Sebastian  will  not  hesitate 
to  say  that  it  is  the  prettiest  town  in  Spain,  and  I 
do  not  know  that  they  could  be  hopefully  contradicted. 
It  is  very  modern  in  its  more  obvious  aspects,  with  a 
noble  thoroughfare  called  the  Avenida  de  Libertad  for 
its  principal  street,  shaded  with  a  double  row  of  those 

feathery  tamarisks,  and  with  handsome  shops  glitter- 

12 


' 


THE    CASINO,    SAN    SEBASTIAN,    LOOKS   OUT   UPON   THE    CURVING   CONCHA 
AND    THE    BLUE    BAY 


SAN     SEBASTIAN    AND    BEAUTIFUL     BISCAY 

ing  on  both  sides  of  it.  Very  easily  it  is  first  of  the 
fashionable  watering-places  of  Spain;  the  King  has 
his  villa  there,  and  the  court  comes  every  summer. 
But  they  had  gone  by  the  time  we  got  there,  and  the 
town  wore  the  dejected  look  of  out-of -season  summer 
resorts;  though  there  was  the  apparatus  of  gaiety,  the 
fine  casino  at  one  end  of  the  beach,  and  the  villas  of 
the  rich  and  noble  all  along  it  to  the  other  end.  On 
the  sand  were  still  many  bathing-machines,  but  many 
others  had  begun  to  climb  for  greater  safety  during 
the  winter  to  the  street  above.  We  saw  one  hardy 
bather  dripping  up  from  the  surf  and  seeking  shelter 
among  those  that  remained,  but  they  were  mostly  ten 
anted  by  their  owners,  who  looked  shoreward  through 
their  open  doors,  and  made  no  secret  of  their  cozy 
domesticity,  where  they  sat  and  sewed  or  knitted  and 
gossiped  with  their  neighbors.  Good  wives  and  moth 
ers  they  doubtless  were,  but  no  doubt  glad  to  be  rest 
ing  from  the  summer  pleasure  of  others.  They  had 
their  beautiful  names  written  up  over  their  doors,  and 
were  for  the  service  of  the  lady  visitors  only;  there 
were  other  machines  for  gentlemen,  and  no  doubt  it 
was  their  owners  whom  we  saw  gathering  the  fat  sea 
weed  thrown  up  by  the  storm  into  the  carts  drawn  by 
oxen  over  the  sand.  The  oxen  wore  no  yokes,  but 
pulled  by  a  band  drawn  over  their  foreheads  under 
their  horns,  and  they  had  the  air  of  not  liking  the 
arrangement;  though,  for  the  matter  of  that,  I  have 
never  seen  oxen  that  seemed  to  like  being  yoked. 

When  we  came  down  to  dinner  we  found  the  tables 
fairly  full  of  belated  visitors,  who  presently  proved 
tourists  flying  south  like  ourselves.  The  dinner  was 
good,  as  it  is  in  nearly  all  Spanish  hotels,  where  for 
an  average  of  three  dollars  a  day  you  have  an  inclusive 

rate  which  you  must  double  for  as  good  accommoda- 

13 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

tion  in  our  States.  Let  no  one,  I  say,  fear  the  rank 
cookery  so  much  imagined  of  the  Peninsula,  the  oil, 
the  pepper,  the  kid  and  the  like  strange  meats;  as  in 
all  other  countries  of  Europe,  even  England  itself, 
there  is  a  local  version,  a  general  convention  of  the 
French  cuisine,  quite  as  good  in  Spain  as  elsewhere, 
and  oftener  superabundant  than  subabundant.  The 
plain  water  is  generally  good,  with  an  American  edge 
of  freshness;  but  if  you  will  not  trust  it  (we  had  to 
learn  to  trust  it)  there  are  agreeable  Spanish  mineral 
waters,  as  well  as  the  Apollinaris,  the  St.  Galmier,  and 
the  Perrier  of  other  civilizations,  to  be  had  for  the 
asking,  at  rather  greater  cost  than  the  good  native 
wines,  often  included  in  the  inclusive  rate. 

Besides  this  convention  of  the  French  cuisine  there 
is  almost  everywhere  a  convention  of  the  English  lan 
guage  in  some  one  of  the  waiters.  You  must  not  stray 
far  from  the  beaten  path  of  your  immediate  wants, 
but  in  this  you  are  safe.  At  San  Sebastian  we  had 
even  a  wider  range  with  the  English  of  the  little  intel 
lectual-looking,  pale  Spanish  waiter,  with  a  fine  Na 
poleonic  head,  who  came  to  my  help  when  I  began 
to  flounder  in  the  language  which  I  had  read  so  much 
and  spoken  so  little  or  none.  He  had  been  a  year  in 
London,  he  said,  and  he  took  us  for  English,  though, 
now  he  came  to  notice  it,  he  perceived  we  were  Ameri 
cans  because  we  spoke  "  quicklier  "  than  the  English. 
We  did  not  protest ;  it  was  the  mildest  criticism  of  our 
national  accent  which  we  were  destined  to  get  from  Eng 
lish-speaking  Spaniards  before  they  found  we  were  not 
the  English  we  did  not  wish  to  be  taken  for.  !&fter 
dinner  we  asked  for  a  fire  in  one  of  our  grates,  but  the 
maid  declared  there  was  no  fuel ;  and,  though  the  host 
ess  denied  this  and  promised  us  a  fire  the  next  night, 

she  forgot  it  till  nine  o'clock,  and  then  we  would  not 

14 


SAN     SEBASTIAN    AND    BEAUTIFUL    BISCAY 

have  it.  The  cold  abode  with  us  indoors  to  the  last 
at  San  Sebastian,  but  the  storm  (which  had  hummed 
and  whistled  theatrically  at  our  windows)  broke  dur 
ing  the  first  night,  and  the  day  followed  with  several 
intervals  of  sunshine,  which  bathed  us  in  a  glowing 
expectation  of  overtaking  the  fugitive  summer  farther 
south. 


IV 


In  the  mean  time  we  hired  a  beautiful  Basque  cab 
man  with  a  red  Basque  cap  and  high-hooked  Basque 
nose  to  drive  us  about  at  something  above  the  legal 
rate  and  let  us  not  leave  any  worthy  thing  in  San 
Sebastian  unseen.  He  took  us,  naturally,  to  several 
churches,  old  and  new,  with  their  Gothic  and  rococo 
interiors,  which  I  still  find  glooming  and  glinting 
among  my  evermore  thickening  impressions  of  like 
things.  We  got  from  them  the  sense  of  that  archi 
tectural  and  sculptural  richness  which  the  interior  of 
no  Spanish  church  ever  failed  measurably  to  give ;  but 
what  their  historical  associations  were  I  will  not  offer 
to  say.  The  associations  of  San  Sebastian  with  the 
past  are  in  all  things  vague,  at  least  for  me.  She 
was  indeed  taken  from  the  French  by  the  English 
under  Wellington  during  the  Peninsular  War,  but  of 
older,  if  not  unhappier  farther-off  days  and  battles 
longer  ago  her  history  as  I  know  it  seems  to  know 
little.  It  knows  of  savage  and  merciless  battles  be 
tween  the  partisans  of  Don  Carlos  and  those  of  Queen 
Isabella  so  few  decades  since  as  not  to  be  the  stuff 
of  mere  pathos  yet,  and  I  am  not  able  to  blink  the 
fact  that  my  beloved  Basques  fought  on  the  wrong 
side,  when  they  need  not  have  fought  at  all.  Why 
they  were  Carlists  they  could  perhaps  no  more  say 

15 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

than  I  could.  The  monumental  historic  fact  is  that 
the  Basques  have  been  where  they  are  immeasurably 
beyond  the  memories  of  other  men;  what  the  scope  of 
their  own  memories  is  one  could  perhaps  confidently  say 
only  in  Basque  if  one  could  say  anything.  Of  course, 
in  the  nature  of  things,  the  Phoenicians  must  have 
been  there  and  the  Greeks,  doubtless,  if  they  ever  got 
outside  of  the  Pillars  of  Hercules ;  the  Romans,  of 
course,  must  have  settled  and  civilized  and  then  Chris 
tianized  the  province.  It  is  next  neighbor  to  that 
province  of  Asturias  in  which  alone  the  Arabs  failed 
to  conquer  the  Goths,  and  from  which  Spain  was  to 
live  and  grow  again  and  recover  all  her  losses  from 
the  Moors;  but  what  the  share  of  San  Sebastian  was 
in  this  heroic  fate,  again  I  must  leave  the  Basques  to 
say.  They  would  doubtless  say  it  with  sufficient  self- 
respect,  for  wherever  we  came  in  contact  that  day 
with  the  Basque  nature  we  could  not  help  imagining 
in  it  a  sense  of  racial  merit  equaling  that  of  the  Welsh 
themselves,  who  are  indeed  another  branch  of  the  same 
immemorial  Iberian  stock,  if  the  Basques  are  Iberians. 
Like  the  Welsh,  they  have  the  devout  tradition  that 
they  never  were  conquered,  but  yielded  to  circum 
stances  when  these  became  too  strong  for  them. 

Among  the  ancient  Spanish  liberties  which  were 
restricted  by  the  consolidating  monarchy  from  age  to 
age,  the  Basque  fueros,  or  rights,  were  the  oldest ;  they 
lasted  quite  to  our  own  day ;  and  although  it  is  known 
to  more  ignorant  men  that  these  privileges  (including 
immunity  from  conscription)  have  now  been  abrogated, 
the  custodian  of  the  House  of  Provincial  Deputies, 
whom  our  driver  took  us  to  visit,  was  such  a  glowing 
Basque  patriot  that  he  treated  them  as  in  full  force. 
His  pride  in  the  seat  of  the  local  government  spared 
us  no  detail  of  the  whole  electric-lighting  system,  or 

16 


SAN     SEBASTIAN    AND    BEAUTIFUL    BISCAY 

even  the  hose-bibs  for  guarding  the  edifice  against  fire, 
let  alone  every  picture  and  photograph  on  the  wall  of 
every  chamber  of  greater  or  less  dignity,  with  every 
notable  table  and  chair.  He  certainly  earned  the 
peseta  I  gave  him,  but  he  would  have  done  far  more 
for  it  if  we  had  suffered  him  to  take  us  up  another 
flight  of  stairs;  and  he  followed  us  in  our  descent 
with  bows  and  adieux  that  ought  to  have  left  no  doubt 
in  our  minds  of  the  persistence  of  the  Basque  fueros. 


It  was  to  such  a  powerful  embodiment  of  the  local 
patriotism  that  our  driver  had  brought  us  from  another 
civic  palace  overlooking  the  Plaza  de  la  Constitucion, 
chiefly  notable  now  for  having  been  the  old  theater  of 
the  bull-fights.  The  windows  in  the  houses  round  still 
bear  the  numbers  by  which  they  were  sold  to  spectators 
as  boxes;  but  now  the  municipality  has  built  a  beauti 
ful  brand-new  bull-ring  in  San  Sebastian;  and  I  do 
not  know  just  why  we  were  required  to  inspect  the 
interior  of  the  edifice  overlooking  this  square.  I  only 
know  that  at  sight  of  our  bewilderment  a  workman 
doing  something  to  the  staircase  clapped  his  hands 
orientally,  and  the  custodian  was  quickly  upon  us 
in  response  to  a  form  of  summons  which  we  were  to 
find  so  often  used  in  Spain.  He  was  not  so  crushing- 
ly  upon  us  as  that  other  custodian ;  he  was  apologetical 
ly  proud,  rather  than  boastfully;  at  times  he  waved 
his  hands  in  deprecation,  and  would  have  made  us 
observe  that  the  place  was  little,  very  little;  he  de 
plored  it  like  a  host  who  wishes  his  possessions  praised. 
Among  the  artistic  treasures  of  the  place  from  which 

he  did  not  excuse  us  there  were  some  pen-drawings, 

17 


FAMILIAR     SPANISH    TRAVELS 

such  as  writing-masters  execute  without  lifting  the  pen 
from  the  paper,  by  a  native  of  South  America,  prob 
ably  of  Basque  descent,  since  the  Basques  have  done 
so  much  to  people  that  continent.  We  not  only  ad 
mired  these,  but  we  would  not  consent  to  any  of  the 
custodian's  deprecations,  especially  when  it  came  to 
question  of  the  pretty  salon  in  which  Queen  Victoria 
was  received  on  her  first  visit  to  San  Sebastian.  We 
supposed  then,  and  in  fact  I  had  supposed  till  this 
moment,  that  it  was  Queen  Victoria  of  Great  Britain 
who  was  meant;  but  now  I  realize  that  it  must  have 
been  the  queen  consort  of  Spain,  who  seems  already  to 
have  made  herself  so  liked  there. 

She,  of  course,  comes  every  summer  to  San  Sebas 
tian,  and  presently  our  driver  took  us  to  see  the 
royal  villa  by  the  shore,  withdrawn,  perhaps  from  a 
sense  of  its  extreme  plainness,  not  to  say  ugliness, 
among  its  trees  and  vines  behind  its  gates  and  walls. 
Our  driver  excused  himself  for  not  being  able  to  show 
us  through  it ;  he  gladly  made  us  free  of  an  unrestricted 
view  of  the  royal  bathing-pavilion,  much  more  frank 
ly  splendid  in  its  gilding,  beside  the  beach.  Other 
villas  ranked  themselves  along  the  hillside,  testifying 
to  the  gaiety  of  the  social  life  in  summers  past  and 
summers  to  come.  In  the  summer  just  past  the  gaiety 
may  have  been  interrupted  by  the  strikes  taking  in 
the  newspapers  the  revolutionary  complexion  which  it 
was  now  said  they  did  not  wear.  At  least,  when  the 
King  had  lately  come  to  fetch  the  royal  household 
away  nothing  whatever  happened,  and  the  "constitu 
tional  guarantees,"  suspended  amidst  the  ministerial 
anxieties,  were  restored  during  the  month,  with  the 
ironical  applause  of  the  liberal  press,  which  pretended 
that  there  had  never  been  any  need  of  their  suspension. 

18 


THE  SEA  SWEEPS  INLAND  IN  A  CIRCLE  OF  BLUE,  TO  FORM  THE  ENTRANCE 
TO   THE    HARBOR,    SAN   SEBASTIAN 


SAN     SEBASTIAN    AND    BEAUTIFUL    BISCAY 


VI 


All  pleasures,  mixed  or  unmixed,  must  end,  and 
the  qualified  joy  of  our  drive  through  San  Sebastian 
came  to  a  close  on  our  return  to  our  hotel  well  within 
the  second  hour,  almost  within  its  first  half.  When 
I  proposed  paving  our  driver  for  the  exact  time,  he 
drooped  upon  his  box  and,  remembering  my  remorse 
in  former  years  for  standing  upon  my  just  rights  in 
such  matters,  I  increased  the  fare,  peseta  by  peseta, 
till  his  sinking  spirits  rose,  and  he  smiled  gratefully 
upon  me  and  touched  his  brave  red  cap  as  he  drove 
away.  He  had  earned  his  money,  if  racking  his  in 
vention  for  objects  of  interest  in  San  Sebastian  was 
a  merit.  At  the  end  we  were  satisfied  that  it  was  a 
well-built  town  with  regular  blocks  in  the  modern 
quarter,  and  not  without  the  charm  of  picturesqueness 
which  comes  of  narrow  and  crooked  lanes  in  the  older 
parts.  Prescient  of  the  incalculable  riches  before  us, 
we  did  not  ask  much  of  it,  and  we  got  all  we  asked.  I 
should  be  grateful  to  San  Sebastian,  if  for  nothing 
else  than  the  two  very  Spanish  experiences  I  had  there. 
One  concerned  a  letter  for  me  which  had  been  refused 
by  the  bankers  named  in  my  letter  of  credit,  from  a 
want  of  faith,  I  suppose,  in  my  coming.  When  I  did 
come  I  was  told  that  I  would  find  it  at  the  post-office. 
That  would  be  well  enough  when  I  found  the  post- 
office,  which  ought  to  have  been  easy  enough,  but  which 
presented  certain  difficulties  in  the  driving  rain  of  our 
first  afternoon,  At  last  in  a  fine  square  I  asked  a 
fellow-man  in  my  best  conversational  Spanish  where 
the  post-office  was,  and  after  a  moment's  apparent 
suffering  he  returned,  "Do  you  speak  English?" 
"Yes,"  I  said,  "and  T  am  so  glad  you  do."  "Not 

19 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

at  all.  I  don't  speak  anything  else.  Great  pleasure. 
There  is  the  post-office,"  and  it  seemed  that  I  had 
hardly  escaped  collision  with  it.  But  this  was  the 
beginning,  not  the  end,  of  my  troubles.  When  I 
showed  my  card  to  the  poste  restante  clerk,  he  went 
carefully  through  the  letters  bearing  the  initial  of  my 
name  and  denied  that  there  was  any  for  me.  We 
entered  into  reciprocally  bewildering  explanations,  and 
parted  altogether  baffled.  Then,  at  the  hotel,  I  con 
sulted  with  a  capable  young  office-lady,  who  tardily 
developed  a  knowledge  of  English,  and  we  agreed  that 
it  would  be  well  to  send  the  chico  to  the  post-office  for 
it.  The  chico,  corresponding  in  a  Spanish  hotel  to  a 
piccolo  in  Grermany  or  a  page  in  England,  or  our  own 
now  evanescing  bell-boy,  was  to  get  a  peseta  for  bring 
ing  me  the  letter.  He  got  the  peseta,  though  he  only 
brought  me  word  that  the  authorities  would  send  the 
letter  to  the  hotel  by  the  postman  that  night.  The 
authorities  did  not  send  it  that  night,  and  the  next 
morning  I  recurred  to  my  bankers.  There,  on  my 
entreaty  for  some  one  who  could  meet  my  Spanish 
at  least  half-way  in  English,  a  manager  of  the  bank 
came  out  of  his  office  and  reassured  me  concerning  the 
letter  which  I  had  now  begun  to  imagine  the  most 
important  I  had  ever  missed.  Even  while  we  talked 
the  postman  came  in  and  owned  having  taken  the  letter 
back  to  the  office.  He  voluntarily  promised  to  bring 
it  to  the  bank  at  one  o'clock,  when  I  hastened  to  meet 
him.  At  that  hour  every  one  was  out  at  lunch ;  I  came 
again  at  four,  when  everybody  had  returned,  but  the 
letter  was  not  delivered;  at  five,  just  before  the  bank 
closed,  the  letter,  which  had  now  grown  from  a  carta 
to  a  cartela,  was  still  on  its  way.  I  left  San  Sebastian 
without  it;  and  will  it  be  credited  that  when  it  was 

forwarded  to  me  a  week  later  at  Madrid  it  proved  the 

20 


SAN     SEBASTIAN    AND     BEAUTIFUL     BISCAY 

most  fatuous  missive  imaginable,  wholly  concerning 
the  writer's  own  affairs  and  none  of  mine  ? 

I  cannot  guess  yet  why  it  was  withheld  from  me, 
but  since  the  incident  brought  me  that  experience  of 
Spanish  politeness,  I  cannot  grieve  for  it.  The  young 
banker  who  left  his  region  of  high  finance  to  come 
out  and  condole  with  me,  in  apologizing  for  the  orig 
inal  refusal  of  my  letter,  would  not  be  contented  with 
so  little.  Nothing  would  satisfy  him  but  going  with 
me,  on  my  hinted  purpose,  and  inquiring  with  me 
at  the  railroad  office  into  the  whole  business  of  circular 
tickets,  and  even  those  kilometric  tickets  which  the 
Spanish  railroads  issue  to  such  passengers  as  will  have 
their  photographs  affixed  to  them  for  the  prevention  of 
transference.  As  it  seemed  advisable  not  to  go  to  this 
extreme  till  I  got  to  Madrid,  my  kind  young  banker 
put  himself  at  my  disposal  for  any  other  service  I 
could  imagine  from  him;  but  I  searched  myself  in 
vain  for  any  desire,  much  less  necessity,  and  I  parted 
from  him  at  the  door  of  his  bank  with  the  best  pos 
sible  opinion  of  the  Basques.  I  suppose  he  was  a 
Basque;  at  any  rate,  he  was  blond,  which  the  Span 
iards  are  mostly  not,  and  the  Basques  often  are.  N"ow 
I  am  sorry,  since  he  was  so  kind,  that  I  did  not  get 
him  to  read  me  the  Basque  inscription  on  the  front  of 
his  bank,  which  looked  exactly  like  that  on  the  bank 
at  Bayonne;  I  should  not  have  understood  it,  but  I 
should  have  known  what  it  sounded  like,  if  it  sounded 
like  anything  but  Basque. 

Everybody  in  San  Sebastian  seemed  resolved  to 
outdo  every  other  in  kindness.  In  a  shop  where 
we  endeavored  to  explain  that  we  wanted  to  get 
a  flat  cap  which  should  be  both  Basque  and  red,  a 
lady  who  was  buying  herself  a  hat  asked  in  English 

if  she  could  help  us.     When  we  gladly  answered  that 

21 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

she  could,  she  was  silent,  almost  to  tears,  and  it  ap 
peared  that  in  this  generous  offer  of  aid  she  had  ex 
hausted  her  whole  stock  of  English.  Her  mortifica 
tion,  her  painful  surprise,  at  the  strange  catastrophe, 
was  really  pitiable,  and  we  hastened  to  escape  from 
it  to  a  shop  across  the  street.  There  instantly  a  small 
boy  rushed  enterprisingly  out  and  brought  back  with 
him  a  very  pretty  girl  who  spoke  most  of  the  little 
French  which  has  made  its  way  in  San  Sebastian 
against  the  combined  Basque  and  Spanish,  and  a  cap 
of  the  right  flatness  and  redness  was  brought.  I  must 
not  forget,  among  the  pleasures  done  us  by  the  place, 
the  pastry  cook's  shop  which  advertised  in  English 
"  Tea  at  all  Hours,"  and  which  at  that  hour  of  our 
afternoon  we  now  found  so  opportune,  that  it  seemed 
almost  personally  attentive  to  us  as  the  only  Anglo- 
Saxon  visitors  in  town.  The  tea  might  have  been  bet 
ter,  but  it  was  as  good  as  it  knew  how;  and  the  small 
boy  who  came  in  with  his  mother  (the  Spanish  mother 
seldom  fails  of  the  company  of  a  small  boy)  in  her 
moments  of  distraction  succeeded  in  touching  with  his 
finger  all  the  pieces  of  pastry  except  those  we  were 
eating. 


VII 


The  high  aquiline  nose  which  is  characteristic  of 
the  autochthonic  race  abounds  in  San  Sebastian,  but 
we  saw  no  signs  of  the  high  temper  which  is  said  to 
go  with  it.  This,  indeed,  was  known  to  me  chiefly  from 
my  first  reading  in  Don  Quixote  of  the  terrific  combat 
between  the  squire  of  the  Biscayan  ladies  whose  car 
riage  the  knight  of  La  Mancha  stopped  after  his  en 
gagement  with  the  windmills.  In  their  exchange  of 
insults  incident  to  the  knight's  desire  that  the  ladies 

22 


SAN     SEBASTIAN     AND     BEAUTIFUL     BISCAY 

should  go  to  Toboso  and  thank  Dulcinea  for  his  de 
livery  of  them  from  the  necromancers  he  had  put  to 
flight  in  the  persons  of  two  Benedictine  monks,  "  '  Get 
gone/  the  squire  called,  in  bad  Spanish  and  worse 
Biscayaii,  '  Get  gone,  thou  knight,  and  Devil  go  with 
thou;  or  by  He  Who  me  create  .  .  .  me  kill  thee  now 
so  sure  as  me  be  Biscayan/  "  and  when  the  knight 
called  him  an  "  inconsiderable  mortal/'  and  said  that 
if  he  were  a  gentleman  he  would  chastise  him :  "  '  What ! 
me  no  gentleman  ?'  replied  the  Biscayan.  '  I  swear 
thou  be  liar  as  me  be  Christian.  .  .  .  Me  will  show 
thee  me  be  Biscayan,  and  gentleman  by  land,  gentle 
man  by  sea,  gentleman  in  spite  of  Devil ;  and  thou  lie  if 
thou  say  the  contrary.' ' 

It  is  a  scene  which  will  have  lived  in  the  memory  of 
every  reader,  and  I  recurred  to  it  hopefully  but  vainly 
in  San  Sebastian,  where  this  fiery  threefold  gentleman 
might  have  lived  in  his  time.  It  would  be  interesting 
to  know  how  far  the  Basques  speak  broken  Spanish  in 
a  fashion  of  their  own,  which  Cervantes  tried  to 
represent  in  the  talk  of  his  Biscayan.  Like  the 
Welsh  again  they  strenuously  keep  their  immemorial 
language  against  the  inroads  of  the  neighboring  speech. 
How  much  they  fix  it  in  a  modern  literature  it  would 
be  easier  to  ask  than  to  say.  I  suppose  there  must  be 
Basque  newspapers;  perhaps  there  are  Basque  novel 
ists,  there  are  notoriously  Basque  bards  who  recite 
their  verses  to  the  peasants,  and  doubtless  there  are 
poets  who  print  their  rhymes:  and  I  blame  myself 
for  not  inquiring  further  concerning  them  of  that 
kindly  Basque  banker  who  wished  so  much  to  do  some 
thing  for  me  in  compensation  for  the  loss  of  my  worth 
less  letter,  I  knew,  too  cheaply,  that  the  Basques  have 
their  poetical  contests,  as  the  Welsh  have  their  musical 

competitions  in  the  Eisteddfod,  and  they  are  once  more 

23 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TEAVELS 

like  the  Welsh,  their  brothers  in  antiquity,  in  calling 
themselves  by  a  national  name  of  their  own.  They  call 
themselves  Euskaldunac,  which  is  as  different  from  the 
name  of  Basque  given  them  by  the  alien  races  as 
Cymru  is  from  Welsh. 

All  this  lore  I  have  easily  accumulated  from  the 
guide-books  since  leaving  San  Sebastian,  but  I  was 
carelessly  ignorant  of  it  in  driving  from  the  hotel 
to  the  station  when  we  came  away,  and  was  much  con 
cerned  in  the  overtures  made  us  in  a  mixed  Spanish, 
English,  and  French  by  a  charming  family  from  Chili, 
through  the  brother  to  one  of  the  ladies  and  husband 
to  the  other.  When  he  perceived  from  my  Spanish 
that  we  were  not  English,  he  rejoiced  that  we  were 
Americans  of  the  north,  and  as  joyfully  proclaimed 
that  they  were  Americans  of  the  south.  We  were 
at  once  sensible  of  a  community  of  spirit  in  our  dif 
ference  from  our  different  ancestral  races.  They  were 
Spanish,  but  with  a  New  World  blitheness  which  we 
nowhere  afterward  found  in  the  native  Spaniards ;  and 
we  were  English,  with  a  willingness  to  laugh  and  to 
joke  which  they  had  not  perhaps  noted  in  our  an 
cestral  contemporaries.  Again  and  again  we  met  them 
in  the  different  cities  where  we  feared  we  had  lost 
them,  until  we  feared  no  more  and  counted  confidently 
on  seeing  them  wherever  we  went.  They  were  always 
radiantly  smiling;  and  upon  this  narrow  ground  I  am 
going  to  base  the  conjecture  that  the  most  distinctive 
difference  of  the  Western  Hemisphere  from  the  East 
ern  is  its  habit  of  seeing  the  fun  of  things.  With 
those  dear  Chilians  we  saw  the  fun  of  many  little 
hardships  of  travel  which  might  have  been  insupport 
able  without  the  vision.  Sometimes  we  surprised  one 
another  in  the  same  hotel;  sometimes  it  was  in  the 

street  that  we  encountered,  usually  to  exchange  amus- 

24 


SAN     SEBASTIAN     AND     BEAUTIFUL     BISCAY 

ing  misfortunes.  If  we  could  have  been  constantly 
with  these  fellow-hemispherists  our  progress  through 
Spain  would  have  been  an  unbroken  holiday. 

There  is  a  superstition  of  travelers  in  Spain,  much 
fostered  by  innkeepers  and  porters,  that  you  cannot 
get  seats  in  the  fast  trains  without  buying  your  tickets 
the  day  before,  and  then  perhaps  not,  and  we  aban 
doned  ourselves  to  this  fear  at  San  Sebastian  so  far 
as  to  get  places  some  hours  in  advance.  But  once 
established  in  the  ten-foot-wide  interior  of  the  first- 
class  compartment  which  we  had  to  ourselves,  every 
anxiety  fell  from  us;  and  I  do  not  know  a  more  flat 
tering  emotion  than  that  which  you  experience  in  sink 
ing  into  your  luxurious  seat,  and,  after  a  glance  at  your 
hand-bags  in  the  racks  where  they  have  been  put  with 
no  strain  on  your  own  muscles,  giving  your  eyes  alto 
gether  to  the  joy  of  the  novel  landscape. 

The  train  was  what  they  call  a  Rapido  in  Spain; 
and  though  we  were  supposed  to  be  devouring  space 
with  indiscriminate  gluttony,  I  do  not  think  that  in 
our  mad  rush  of  twenty-five  miles  an  hour  we  failed 
to  taste  any  essential  detail  of  the  scenery.  But  I  wish 
now  that  I  had  known  the  Basques  were  all  nobles, 
and  that  the  peasants  owned  many  of  the  little  farms 
we  saw  declaring  the  general  thrift.  In  the  first  two 
hours  of  the  six  to  Burgos  we  ran  through  lovely 
valleys  held  in  the  embrace  of  gentle  hills,  where  the 
fields  of  Indian  corn  were  varied  by  groves  of  chestnut 
trees,  where  we  could  see  the  burrs  gaping  on  their 
stems.  The  blades  and  tassels  of  the  corn  had  been 
stripped  away,  leaving  the  ripe  ears  a-tilt  at  the  top 
of  the  stalks,  which  looked  like  cranes  standing  on  one 
leg  with  their  heads  slanted  in  pensive  contemplation. 
There  were  no  vineyards,  but  orchards  aplenty  near 

the  farmhouses,  and  all  about  there  were  other  trees 

25 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

pollarded  to  the  quick  and  tufted  with  mistletoe,  not 
only  the  stout  oaks,  but  the  slim  poplars  trimmed  up 
into  tall  plumes  like  the  poplars  in  southern  France. 
The  houses,  when  they  did  not  stand  apart  like  our 
own  farmhouses,  gathered  into  gray-brown  villages 
around  some  high-shouldered  church  with  a  bell-tower 
in  front  or  at  one  corner  of  the  fagade.  In  most  of 
the  larger  houses  an  economy  of  the  sun's  heat,  the 
only  heat  recognized  in  the  winter  of  southern  coun 
tries,  was  practised  by  glassing  in  the  balconies  that 
stretched  quite  across  their  fronts  and  kept  the  cold 
from  at  least  one  story.  It  gave  them  a  very  cheery 
look,  and  must  have  made  them  livable  at  least  in  the 
daytime.  Now  and  then  the  tall  chimney  of  one  of 
those  manufactories  we  had  seen  on  the  way  from  IrCm 
invited  belief  in  the  march  of  industrial  prosperity; 
but  whether  the  Basque  who  took  work  in  a  mill  or  a 
foundry  forfeited  his  nobility  remained  a  part  of  the 
universal  Basque  secret.  From  time  to  time  a  moun 
tain  stream  brawled  from  under  a  world-old  bridge, 
and  then  spread  a  quiet  tide  for  the  women  to  kneel 
beside  and  wash  the  clothes  which  they  spread  to  dry 
on  every  bush  and  grassy  slope  of  the  banks. 

The  whole  scene  changed  after  we  ran  out  of  the 
Basque  country  and  into  the  austere  landscape  of 
old  Castile.  The  hills  retreated  and  swelled  into 
mountains  that  were  not  less  than  terrible  in  their 
savage  nakedness.  The  fields  of  corn  and  the  orchards 
ceased,  and  the  green  of  the  pastures  changed  to  the 
tawny  gray  of  the  measureless  wheat-lands  into  which 
the  valleys  flattened  and  widened.  There  were  no 
longer  any  factory  chimneys;  the  villages  seemed  to 
turn  from  stone  to  mud;  the  human  poverty  showed 
itself  in  the  few  patched  and  tattered  figures  that  fol 
lowed  the  oxen  in  the  interminable  furrows  shallowly 


SAN     SEBASTIAN    AND    BEAUTIFUL    BISCAY 

scraping  the  surface  of  the  lonely  levels.  The  haggard 
mountain  ranges  were  of  stone  that  seemed  blanched 
with  geologic  superannuation,  and  at  one  place  we  ran 
by  a  wall  of  hoary  rock  that  drew  its  line  a  mile  long 
against  the  sky,  and  then  broke  and  fell,  and  then 
staggered  up  again  in  a  succession  of  titanic  bulks. 
But  stupendous  as  these  mountain  masses  were,  they 
were  not  so  wonderful  as  those  wheat-lands  which  in 
harvest-time  must  wash  their  shores  like  a  sea  of  gold. 
Where  these  now  rose  and  sank  with  the  long  ground- 
swell  of  the  plains  in  our  own  West,  a  thin  gray  stubble 
covered  them  from  the  feeble  culture  which  leaves 
Spain,  for  all  their  extent  in  both  the  Castiles,  in 
Estremadura,  in  Andalusia,  still  without  bread  enough 
to  feed  herself,  and  obliges  her  to  import  alien  wheat. 
At  the  lunch  which  we  had  so  good  in  the  dining- 
car  we  kept  our  talk  to  the  wonder  of  the  scenery,  and 
well  away  from  the  interesting  Spanish  pair  at  our 
table.  It  is  never  safe  in  Latin  Europe  to  count  upon 
ignorance  of  English  in  educated  people,  or  peo 
ple  who  look  so;  and  with  these  we  had  the  reward 
of  our  prudence  when  the  husband  asked  after  dessert 
if  we  minded  his  smoking.  His  English  seemed  meant 
to  open  the  way  for  talk,  and  we  were  willing  he  should 
do  the  talking.  He  spoke  without  a  trace  of  accent, 
and  we  at  once  imagined  circles  in  which  it  was  now 
as  chic  for  Spaniards  to  speak  English  as  it  once  was 
to  speak  French.  They  are  said  never  to  speak  French 
quite  well;  but  nobody  could  have  spoken  English 
better  than  this  gentleman,  not  even  we  who  were,  as 
he  said  he  supposed,  English.  Truth  and  patriotism 
both  obliged  us  to  deny  his  conjecture;  and  when  lie 
intimated  that  he  would  not  have  known  us  for  Ameri 
cans  because  we  did  not  speak  with  the  dreadful 
American  accent,  I  hazarded  my  belief  that  this  dread- 
3  27 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

fulness  was  personal  rather  than  national.  But  he 
would  not  have  it  Boston  people,  yes;  they  spoke 
very  well,  and  he  allowed  other  exceptions  to  the  gen 
eral  rule  of  our  nasal  twang,  which  his  wife  summoned 
English  enough  to  say  was  very  ugly.  They  had  suf 
fered  from  it  too  universally  in  the  Americans  they 
had  met  during  the  summer  in  Germany  to  believe 
it  was  merely  personal ;  and  I  suppose  one  may  own  to 
strictly  American  readers  that  our  speech  is  dreadful, 
that  it  is  very  ugly.  These  amiable  Spaniards  had  no 
reason  and  no  wish  to  wound;  and  they  could  never 
know  what  sweet  and  noble  natures  had  been  produc 
ing  their  voices  through  their  noses  there  in  Germany. 
I  for  my  part  could  not  insist ;  who,  indeed,  can  defend 
the  American  accent,  which  is  not  so  much  an  accent 
as  a  whiffle,  a  snuffle,  a  twang  ?  It  was  mortifying,  all 
the  same,  to  have  it  openly  abhorred  by  a  foreigner, 
and  I  willingly  got  away  from  the  question  to  that 
of  the  weather.  We  agreed  admirably  about  the  heat 
in  England  where  this  gentleman  went  every  summer, 
and  had  never  found  it  so  hot  before.  It  was  hot  even 
in  Denmark;  but  he  warned  me  not  to  expect  any 
warmth  in  Spain  now  that  the  autumn  rains  had 
begun.** 

If  this  couple  represented  a  cosmopolitan  and  mod 
ern  Spain,  it  was  interesting  to  escape  to  something 
entirely  native  in  the  three  young  girls  who  got  in  at 
the  next  station  and  shared  our  compartment  with  us 
as  far  as  we  went.  They  were  tenderly  kissed  by  their 
father  in  putting  them  on  board,  and  held  in  lingering 
farewells  at  the  window  till  the  train  started.  The 
eldest  of  the  three  then  helped  in  arranging  their 
baskets  in  the  rack,  but  the  middle  sister  took  motherly 
charge  of  the  youngest,  whom  she  at  once  explained  to 
us  as  enferma.  She  was  the  prettiest  girl  of  the  con- 


SAN    SEBASTIAN    AND    BEAUTIFUL    BISCAY 

ventional  Spanish  type  we  had  yet  seen:  dark-eyed 
and  dark-haired,  regular,  but  a  little  overfull  of  the 
chin  which  she  would  presently  have  double.  She  was 
very,  very  pale  of  face,  with  a  pallor  in  which  she  had 
assisted  nature  with  powder,  as  all  Spanish  women, 
old  and  young,  seem  to  do.  But  there  was  no  red 
underglow  in  the  pallor,  such  as  gives  many  lovely  faces 
among  them  the  complexion  of  whitewash  over  pink 
on  a  stucco  surface.  She  wrapped  up  the  youngest 
sister,  who  would  by  and  by  be  beautiful,  and  now 
being  sick  had  only  the  flush  of  fever  in  her  cheeks,  and 
propped  her  in  the  coziest  corner  of  the  car,  where  she 
tried  to  make  her  keep  still,  but  could  not  make  her 
keep  silent.  In  fact,  they  all  babbled  together,  over 
the  basket  of  luncheon  which  the  middle  sister  opened 
after  springing  up  the  little  table-leaf  of  the  window, 
and  spread  with  a  substantial  variety  including  fowl 
and  sausage  and  fruit,  such  as  might  tempt  any  sick 
appetite,  or  a  well  one,  even.  As  she  brought  out  each 
of  these  victuals,  together  with  a  bottle  of  wine  and 
a  large  bottle  of  milk,  she  first  offered  it  to  us,  and 
when  it  was  duly  refused  with  thanks,  she  made  the 
invalid  eat  and  drink,  especially  the  milk  which  she 
made  a  wry  face  at.  When  she  had  finished  they  all 
began  to  question  whether  her  fever  was  rising  for  the 
day;  the  good  sister  felt  the  girl's  pulse,  and  got  out 
a  thermometer,  which  together  they  arranged  under 
her  arm,  and  then  duly  inspected.  It  seemed  that  the 
fever  was  rising,  as  it  might  very  well  be,  but  the  mid 
dle  sister  was  not  moved  from  her  notable  calm,  and 
the  eldest  did  not  fear.  At  a  place  where  a  class  of 
young  men  was  to  be  seen  before  an  ecclesiastical  col 
lege  the  girls  looked  out  together,  and  joyfully  decided 
that  the  brother  (or  possibly  a  cousin)  whom  they 

expected  to  see,  was  really  there  among  them.     When 

29 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

we  reached  Burgos  we  felt  that  we  had  assisted  at  a 
drama  of  family  medicine  and  affection  which  was  so 
sweet  that  if  the  fever  was  not  very  wisely  it  was  very 
winningly  treated.  It  was  not  perhaps  a  very  serious 
case,  and  it  meant  a  good  deal  of  pleasant  excitement 
for  all  concerned. 


Ill 

BUEGOS    AND    THE    BITTER    COLD    OF 
BUKGOS 

IT  appears  to  be  the  use  in  most  minor  cities  of 
Spain  for  the  best  hotel  to  send  the  worst  omnibus 
to  the  station,  as  who  should  say,  "  Good  wine  needs 
no  bush."  At  Burgos  we  were  almost  alarmed  by  the 
shabbiness  of  the  omnibus  for  the  hotel  we  had  chosen 
through  a  consensus  of  praise  in  the  guide-books,  and 
thought  we  must  have  got  the  wrong  one.  It  was 
indeed  the  wrong  one,  but  because  there  is  no  right 
hotel  in  Burgos  when  you  arrive  there  on  an  after 
noon  of  early  October,  and  feel  the  prophetic  chill  of 
that  nine  months  of  winter  which  is  said  to  contrast 
there  with  three  months  of  hell. 


The  air  of  Burgos  when  it  is  not  the  breath  of  a 
furnace  is  so  heavy  and  clammy  through  the  testimony 
of  all  comers  that  Burgos  herself  no  longer  attempts 
to  deny  it  from  her  high  perch  on  the  uplands  of  Old 
Castile.  Just  when  she  ceased  to  deny  it,  I  do  not 
know,  but  probably  when  she  ceased  to  be  the  sole 
capital  and  metropolis  of  Christian  Spain  and  shared 
her  primacy  with  Toledo  sometime  in  the  fourteenth 
century.  Now,  in  the  twentieth,  we  asked  nothing  of 

31 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

her  but  two  rooms  in  which  we  could  have  fire,  but 
the  best  hotel  in  Burgos  openly  declared  that  it  had 
not  a  fireplace  in  its  whole  extent,  though  there  must 
have  been  one  in  the  kitchen.  The  landlord  pointed 
out  that  it  was  completely  equipped  with  steam-heating 
apparatus,  but  when  I  made  him  observe  that  there 
was  no  steam  in  the  shining  radiators,  he  owned  with 
a  shrug  that  there  was  truth  in  what  I  said.  He 
showed  us  large,  pleasant  rooms  to  the  south  which 
would  have  been  warm  from  the  sun  if  the  sun  which 
we  left  playing  in  San  Sebastian  had  been  working 
that  day  at  Burgos;  he  showed  us  his  beautiful  new 
dining-room,  cold,  with  the  same  sunny  exposure.  I 
rashly  declared  that  all  would  not  do,  and  that  I  would 
look  elsewhere  for  rooms  with  fireplaces.  I  had  first 
to  find  a  cab  in  order  to  find  the  other  hotels,  but  I 
found  instead  that  in  a  city  of  thirty-eight  thousand 
inhabitants  there  was  not  one  cab  standing  for  hire 
in  the  streets.  I  tried  to  enlist  the  sympathies  of  some 
private  carriages,  but  they  remained  indifferent,  and 
I  went  back  foiled,  but  not  crushed,  to  our  hotel. 
There  it  seemed  that  the  only  vehicle  to  be  had  was 
the  omnibus  which  had  brought  us  from  the  station. 
The  landlord  calmly  (I  did  not  then  perceive  the  irony 
of  his  calm)  had  the  horses  put  to  and  our  baggage 
put  on,  and  we  drove  away.  But  first  we  met  our  dear 
Chilians  coming  to  our  hotel  from  the  hotel  they  had 
chosen,  and  from  a  search  for  hearthstones  in  others; 
and  we  drove  to  the  only  hotel  they  had  left  unvisited. 
There  at  our  demand  for  fires  the  landlord  all  but 
laughed  us  to  scorn;  he  laid  his  hand  on  the  cold 
radiator  in  the  hotel  as  if  to  ask  what  better  we  could 
wish  than  that.  We  drove  back,  humbled,  to  our  own 
hotel,  where  the  landlord  met  us  with  the  Castilian 
calm  he  had  kept  at  our  departure.  Then  there  was 

32 


GROUPS  OF  WOMEN  ON  THEIR  KNEES  BEATING  CLOTHES  IN  THE 
WATER 


BURGOS    AND    THE    BITTER    COLD    OF    BURGOS 

nothing  for  me  but  to  declare  myself  the  Prodigal 
Son  returned  to  take  the  rooms  he  had  offered  us.  We 
were  so  perfectly  in  his  power  that  he  could  magnani 
mously  afford  to  offer  us  other  rooms  equally  cold,  but 
we  did  not  care  to  move.  The  Chilians  had  retired 
baffled  to  their  own  hotel,  and  there  was  nothing  for  us 
but  to  accept  the  long  evening  of  gelid  torpor  which 
we  foresaw  must  follow  the  effort  of  the  soup  and 
wine  to  warm  us  at  dinner.  That  night  we  heard 
through  our  closed  doors  agonized  voices  which  we 
knew  to  be  the  voices  of  despairing  American  women 
wailing  through  the  freezing  corridors,  "  Can't  she 
understand  that  I  want  boiling  water  ?"  and,  "  Can't 
we  go  down-stairs  to  a  fire  somewhere?"  We  knew 
the  one  meant  the  chambermaid  and  the  other  the 
kitchen,  but  apparently  neither  prayer  was  answered. 


n 

As  soon  as  we  had  accepted  our  fate,  while  as  yet 
the  sun  had  not  set  behind  the  clouds  which  had  kept 
it  out  of  our  rooms  all  day,  we  hurried  out  not  only 
to  escape  the  rigors  of  our  hotel,  but  to  see  as  soon  as 
we  could,  as  much  as  we  could  of  the  famous  city.  We 
had  got  an  excellent  cup  of  tea  in  the  glass-roofed 
pavilion  of  our  beautiful  cold  dining-room,  and  now 
our  spirits  rose  level  with  the  opportunities  of  the  en 
trancing  walk  we  took  along  the  course  of  the  Arlanzon. 
I  say  course,  because  that  is  the  right  word  to  use  of 
a  river,  but  really  there  was  no  course  in  the  Arlanzon. 
Between  the  fine,  wide  embankments  and  under  the 
noble  bridges  there  were  smooth  expanses  of  water 
(naturally  with  women  washing  at  them),  which  re 
flected  like  an  afterglow  of  the  evening  sky  the  splendid 

masses  of  yarn  hung  red  from  the  dyer's  vats  on  the 

33 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

bank.  The  expanses  of  water  were  bordered  by  wider 
spaces  of  grass  which  had  grown  during  the  rainless 
summer,  but  which  were  no  doubt  soon  to  be  submerged 
under  the  autumnal  torrent  the  river  would  become. 
The  street  which  shaped  itself  to  the  stream  was  a 
rather  modern  avenue,  leading  to  a  beautiful  public 
garden,  with  the  statues  and  fountains  proper  to  a 
public  garden,  and  densely  shaded  against  the  three 
infernal  months  of  the  Burgos  year.  But  the  houses 
were  glazed  all  along  their  fronts  with  the  sun-traps 
which  we  had  noted  in  the  Basque  country,  and  which 
do  not  wait  for  a  certain  date  in  the  almanac  to  do  the 
work  of  steam-heating.  They  gave  a  tempting  effect 
to  the  house-fronts,  but  they  could  not  distract  our 
admiration  from  the  successive  crowds  of  small  boys 
playing  at  bull-fighting  in  the  streets  below,  and  in  the 
walks  of  the  public  garden.  The  population  of  Burgos 
is  above  thirty-seven  thousand  and  of  the  inhabitants 
at  least  thirty-six  thousand  are  small  boys,  as  I  was 
convinced  by  the  computation  of  the  husband  and 
brother  of  the  Chilian  ladies  which  agreed  perfectly 
with  my  own  hasty  conjecture ;  the  rest  are  small  girls. 
In  fact  large  families,  and  large  families  chiefly  of 
boys,  are  the  rule  in  Spain  everywhere ;  and  they  every 
where  know  how  to  play  bull-fighting,  to  flap  any-col 
ored  old  shawl,  or  breadth  of  cloth  in  the  face  of  the 
bull,  to  avoid  his  furious  charges,  and  doubtless  to  deal 
him  his  death-wound,  though  to  this  climax  I  could  not 
bear  to  follow. 

One  or  two  of  the  bull-fighters  offered  to  leave  the 
national  sport  and  show  us  the  House  of  Miranda,  but 
it  was  the  cathedral  which  was  dominating  our  desire, 
as  it  everywhere  dominates  the  vision,  in  Burgos  and 
out  of  Burgos  as  far  as  the  city  can  be  seen.  The  iron- 
gray  bulk,  all  flattered  or  fretted  by  Gothic  art,  rears 

34 


BUEGOS    AND    THE    BITTER    COLD    OF    BURGOS 

itself  from  the  clustering  brown  walls  and  roofs  of  the 
city,  which  it  seems  to  gather  into  its  mass  below  while 
it  towers  so  far  above  them.  We  needed  no  pointing 
of  the  way  to  it;  rather  we  should  have  needed  in 
struction  for  shunning  it;  but  we  chose  the  way  which 
led  through  the  gate  of  Santa  Maria  where  in  an  arch 
once  part  of  the  city  wall,  the  great  Cid,  hero  above 
every  other  hero  of  Burgos,  sits  with  half  a  dozen  more 
or  less  fabled  or  storied  worthies  of  the  renowned  city. 
Then  with  a  minute's  walk  up  a  stony  sloping  little 
street  we  were  in  the  beautiful  and  reverend  presence 
of  one  of  the  most  august  temples  of  the  Christian 
faith.  The  avenue  where  the  old  Castilian  nobles  once 
dwelt  in  their  now  empty  palaces  climbs  along  the  hill 
side  above  the  cathedral,  which  on  its  lower  side  seems 
to  elbow  off  the  homes  of  meaner  men,  and  in  front  to 
push  them  away  beyond  a  plaza  not  large  enough  for 
it.  Even  this  the  cathedral  had  not  cleared  of  the  horde 
of  small  boys  who  followed  us  unbidden  to  its  doors 
and  almost  expropriated  those  authorized  blind  beggars 
who  own  the  church  doors  in  Spain.  When  we  de 
clined  the  further  company  of  these  boys  they  left  us 
with  expressions  which  I  am  afraid  accused  our  judg 
ment  and  our  personal  appearance ;  but  in  another  mo 
ment  we  were  safe  from  their  censure,  and  hidden  as 
it  were  in  the  thick  smell  of  immemorial  incense. 

It  was  not  the  moment  for  doing  the  cathedral  in 
the  wonted  tiresome  and  vulgar  way ;  that  was  reserved 
for  the  next  day ;  now  we  simply  wandered  in  the  vast 
twilight  spaces;  and  craned  our  necks  to  breaking  in 
trying  to  pierce  the  gathered  gloom  in  the  vaulting  over 
head.  It  was  a  precious  moment,  but  perhaps  too  weird, 
and  we  were  glad  to  find  a  sacristan  with  business 
like  activity  setting  red  candlesticks  about  a  bier  in  the 

area  before  the  choir,  which  here,  as  in  the  other  Span- 

35 


FAMILIAK  SPANISH  TRAVELS 

ish  cathedrals,  is  planted  frankly  in  the  middle  of  the 
edifice,  a  church  by  itself,  as  if  to  emphasize  the  in 
comparable  grandeur  of  the  cathedral.  The  sacristan 
willingly  paused  in  his  task  and  explained  that  he  was 
preparing  the  bier  for  the  funeral  of  a  church  dig 
nitary  (as  we  learned  later,  the  dean)  which  was  to 
take  place  the  next  day  at  noon ;  and  if  we  would  come 
at  that  hour  we  should  hear  some  beautiful  music. 
We  knew  that  he  was  establishing  a  claim  on  our  future 
custom,  but  we  thanked  him  and  provisionally  feed 
him,  and  left  him  at  his  work,  at  which  we  might  have 
all  but  fancied  him  whistling,  so  cheerfully  and  briskly 
he  went  about  it. 

Outside  we  lingered  a  moment  to  give  ourselves  the 
solemn  joy  of  the  Chapel  of  the  Constable  which  forms 
the  apse  of  the  cathedral  and  is  its  chief  glory.  It 
mounted  to  the  hard,  gray  sky,  from  which  a  keen 
wind  was  sweeping  the  narrow  street  leading  to  it,  and 
blustering  round  the  corner  of  the  cathedral,  so  that 
the  marble  men  holding  up  the  Constable's  coat-of-arms 
in  the  rear  of  his  chapel  might  well  have  ached  from 
the  cold  which  searched  the  marrow  of  flesh-and-blood 
men  below.  These  hurried  by  in  flat  caps  and  corduroy 
coats  and  trousers,  with  sashes  at  their  waists  and 
comforters  round  their  necks;  and  they  were  pictu 
resque  quite  in  the  measure  of  their  misery.  Some 
whose  tatters  were  the  most  conspicuous  feature  of  their 
costume,  I  am  sure  would  have  charmed  me  if  I  had 
been  a  painter;  as  a  mere  word-painter  I  find  myself 
wishing  I  could  give  the  color  of  their  wretchedness 
to  my  page. 

in 

In  the  absence  of  any  specific  record  in  my  note 
book  I  do  not  know  just  how  it  was  between  this  first 


BUKGOS    AND    THE    BITTER    COLD    OF    BURGOS 

glimpse  of  the  cathedral  and  dinner,  but  it  must  have 
been  on  our  return  to  our  hotel,  that  the  little  inter 
preter  who  had  met  us  at  the  station,  and  had  been 
intermittently  constituting  himself  our  protector  ever 
since,  convinced  us  that  we  ought  to  visit  the  City 
Hall,  and  see  the  outside  of  the  marble  tomb  contain 
ing  the  bones  of  the  Cid  and  his  wife.  Such  as  the 
bones  were  we  found  they  were  not  to  be  seen  them 
selves,  and  I  do  not  know  that  I  should  have  been  the 
happier  for  their  inspection.  In  fact,  I  have  no  great 
opinion  of  the  Cid  as  an  historical  character  or  a  poetic 
fiction.  His  epic,  or  his  long  ballad,  formed  no  part 
of  my  young  study  in  Spanish,  and  when  four  or  five 
years  ago  a  friend  gave  me  a  copy  of  it,  beautifully 
printed  in  black  letter,  with  the  prayer  that  I  should 
read  it  sometime  within  the  twelvemonth,  I  found  the 
time  far  too  short.  As  a  matter  of  fact  I  have  never 
read  the  poem  to  this  day,  though  I  have  often  tried, 
and  I  doubt  if  its  author  ever  intended  it  to  be  read. 
He  intended  it  rather  to  be  recited  in  stirring  episodes, 
with  spaces  for  refreshing  slumber  in  the  connecting 
narrative.  As  for  the  Cid  in  real  life  under  his  proper 
name  of  Rodrigo  de  Vivas,  though  he  made  his  king 
publicly  swear  that  he  had  had  no  part  in  the  murder 
of  his  royal  brother,  and  though  he  was  the  stoutest 
and  bravest  knight  in  Castile,  I  cannot  find  it  alto 
gether  admirable  in  him  that  when  his  king  banished 
him  he  should  resolve  to  fight  thereafter  for  any  master 
who  paid  him  best.  That  appears  to  me  the  part  of  a 
road-agent  rather  than  a  reformer,  and  it  seems  to  me 
no  amend  for  his  service  under  Moorish  princes  that 
he  should  make  war  against  them  on  his  personal  be 
half  or  afterward  under  his  own  ungrateful  king.  He 
is  friends  now  with  the  Arabian  King  of  Saragossa, 

and  now  he  defeats  the  Aragonese  under  the  Castilian 

37 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

sovereign,  and  again  he  sends  an  insulting  message  by 
the  Moslems  to  the  Christian  Count  of  Barcelona,  whom 
he  takes  prisoner  with  his  followers,  but  releases  with 
out  ransom  after  a  contemptuous  audience.  Is  it  well, 
I  ask,  that  he  helps  one  Moor  against  another,  always 
for  what  there  is  in  it,  and  when  he  takes  Valencia 
from  the  infidels,  keeps  none  of  his  promises  to  them, 
but  having  tortured  the  governor  to  make  him  give  up 
his  treasure,  buries  him  to  his  waist  and  then  burns 
him  alive  ?  After  that,  to  be  sure,  he  enjoys  his  declin 
ing  years  by  making  forays  in  the  neighboring  country, 
and  dies  "  satisfied  with  having  done  his  duty  toward 
his  God." 

Our  interpreter,  who  would  not  let  us  rest  till  he 
had  shown  us  the  box  holding  the  Cid's  bones,  had 
himself  had  a  varied  career.  If  you  believed  him  he 
was  born  in  Madrid  and  had  passed,  when  three  years 
old,  to  New  York,  where  he  grew  up  to  become  a  citizen 
and  be  the  driver  of  a  delivery  wagon  for  a  large  depart 
ment-store.  He  duly  married  an  American  woman  who 
could  speak  not  only  Trench,  German,  and  Italian, 
but  also  Chinese,  and  was  now  living  with  him  in 
Burgos.  His  own  English  had  somewhat  fallen  by 
the  way,  T>ut  what  was  left  he  used  with  great  courage ; 
and  he  was  one  of  those  government  interpreters  whom 
you  find  at  every  large  station  throughout  Spain  in  the 
number  of  the  principal  hotels  of  the  place.  They 
pay  the  government  a  certain  tax  for  their  license, 
though  it  was  our  friend's  expressed  belief  that  the 
government,  on  the  contrary,  paid  him  a  salary  of  two 
dollars  a  day;  but  perhaps  this  was  no  better  founded 
than  his  belief  in  a  German  princess  who,  when  he 
went  as  her  courier,  paid  him  ten  dollars  a  day  and  all 
his  expenses.  She  wished  him  to  come  and  live  near 

her  in  Germany,  so  as  to  be  ready  to  go  with  her  to 

38 


BUEGOS   AND    THE    BITTER   COLD    OF    BUKGOS 

South  America,  but  he  had  not  yet  made  up  his  mind 
to  leave  Burgos,  though  his  poor  eyes  watered  with 
such  a  cold  as  only  Burgos  can  give  a  man  in  the 
early  autumn;  when  I  urged  him  to  look  to  the  bad 
cough  he  had,  he  pleaded  that  it  was  a  very  old  cough. 
He  had  a  fascination  of  his  own,  which  probably  came 
from  his  imaginative  habit  of  mind,  so  that  I  could 
have  wished  more  adoptive  fellow-citizens  were  like 
him.  He  sympathized  strongly  with  us  in  our  grief 
with  the  cold  of  the  hotel,  and  when  we  said  that  a 
small  oil-heater  would  take  the  chill  off  a  large  room, 
he  said  that  he  had  advised  that  very  thing,  but  that 
our  host  had  replied,  with  proud  finality,  "  I  am  the 
landlord."  Whether  this  really  happened  or  not,  I 
cannot  say,  but  I  have  no  doubt  that  our  little  guide 
had  some  faith  in  it  as  a  real  incident.  He  apparently 
had  faith  in  the  landlord's  boast  that  he  was  going  to 
have  a  stately  marble  staircase  to  the  public  entrance 
to  his  hotel,  which  was  presently  of  common  stone, 
rather  tipsy  in  its  treads,  and  much  in  need  of  scrub 
bing. 

There  is  as  little  question  in  my  mind  that  he  be 
lieved  the  carriage  we  had  engaged  to  take  us  next 
morning  to  the  Cartuja  de  Miraflores'  would  be  ready 
at  a  quarter  before  nine,  and  that  he  may  have  been 
disappointed  when  it  was  not  ready  until  a  quarter 
after.  But  it  was  worth  waiting  for  if  to  have  a  team 
composed  of  a  brown  mule  on  the  right  hand  and  a  gray 
horse  on  the  left  was  to  bj  desired.  These  animals 
whicE  nature  had  so  differenced  were  equalized  by  art 
through  the  lavish  provision  of  sleigh-bells,  without 
some  strands  of  which  no  team  in  Spain  is  properly 
equipped.  Besides,  as  to  his  size  the  mule  was  quite 
as  large  as  the  horse,  and  as  to  his  tail  he  was  much 
more  decorative.  'About  two  inches  after  this  member 

39 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

left  his  body  it  was  closely  shaved  for  some  six  inches 
or  more,  and  for  that  space  it  presented  the  effect  of  a 
rather  large  size  of  garden-hose;  below,  it  swept  his 
thighs  in  a  lordly  switch.  If  anything  could  have  added 
distinction  to  our  turnout  it  would  have  been  the  stiff 
side- whiskers  of  our  driver:  the  only  pair  I  saw  in 
real  life  after  seeing  them  so  long  in  pictures  on  boxes 
of  raisins  and  cigars.  There  they  were  associated  with 
the  look  and  dress  of  a  torrero,  and  our  coachman, 
though  an  old  Castilian  of  the  austerest  and  most 
taciturn  pattern,  may  have  been  in  his  gay  youth  an 
Andalusian  bull-fighter.  ^ 


IV 

Our  pride  in  our  equipage  soon  gave  way  to  our 
interest  in  the  market  for  sheep,  cattle,  horses,  and 
donkeys  which  we  passed  through  just  outside  the  city. 
The  market  folk  were  feeling  the  morning's  cold ;  shep 
herds  folded  in  their  heavy  shawls  leaned  motionless 
on  their  long  staves,  as  if  hating  to  stir ;  one  ingenious 
boy  wore  a  live  lamb  round  his  neck  which  he  held 
close  by  the  legs  for  the  greater  comfort  of  it;  under 
the  trees  by  the  roadside  some  of  the  peasants  were 
cooking  their  breakfasts  and  warming  themselves  at  the 
fires.  The  sun  was  on  duty  in  a  cloudless  sky;  but 
all  along  the  road  to  the  Cartuja  we  drove  between 
rows  of  trees  so  thickly  planted  against  his  summer 
rage  that  no  ray  of  his  friendly  heat  could  now  reach 
us.  At  times  it  seemed  as  if  from  this  remorselessly 
shaded  avenue  we  should  escape  into  the  open ;  the  trees 
gave  way  and  we  caught  glimpses  of  wide  plains  and 
distant  hills;  then  they  closed  upon  us  again,  and  in 
their  chill  shadow  it  was  no  comfort  to  know  that  in 

summer,  when  the  townspeople  got  through  their  work, 

40 


BIIKGOS    AND    THE    BITTER    COLD    OF    BURGOS 

they  came  out  to  these  groves,  men,  women,  and  chil 
dren,  and  had  supper  under  their  hospitable  boughs. 

One  comes  to  almost  any  Cartuja  at  last,  and  we 
found  ours  on  a  sunny  top  just  when  the  cold  had 
pinched  us  almost  beyond  endurance,  and  joined  a 
sparse  group  before  the  closed  gate  of  the  convent. 
The  group  was  composed  of  poor  people  who  had 
come  for  the  dole  of  food  daily  distributed  from  the 
convent,  and  better-to-do  country-folk  who  had  brought 
things  to  sell  to  the  monks,  or  were  there  on  affairs 
not  openly  declared.  But  it  seemed  that  it  was  a  saint's 
day;  the  monks  were  having  service  in  the  church 
solely  for  their  own  edification,  and  they  had  shut  us 
sinners  out  not  only  by  locking  the  gate,  but  by  taking 
away  the  wire  for  ringing  the  bell,  and  leaving  nothing 
but  a  knocker  of  feeble  note  with  which  different  mem 
bers  of  our  indignation  meeting  vainly  hammered.  Our 
guide  assumed  the  virtue  of  the  greatest  indignation, 
though  he  ought  to  have  known  that  we  could  not  get 
in  on  that  saint's  day ;  but  it  did  not  avail,  and  the  little 
group  dispersed,  led  off  by  the  brown  peasant  who  was 
willing  to  share  my  pleasure  in  our  excursion  as  a  good 
joke  on  us,  and  smiled  with  a  show  of  teeth  as  white 
as  the  eggs  in  his  basket.  After  all,  it  was  not  wholly 
a  hardship ;  we  could  walk  about  in  the  sunny  if  some 
what  muddy  open,  and  warm  ourselves  against  the  icily 
shaded  drive  back  to  town;  besides,  there  was  a  little 
girl  crouching  at  the  foot  of  a  tree,  and  playing  at  a 
phase  of  the  housekeeping  which  is  the  game  of  little 
girls  the  world  over.  Her  sad,  still-faced  mother  stand 
ing  near,  with  an  interest  in  her  apparently  renewed 
by  my  own,  said  that  she  was  four  years  old,  and  joined 
me  in  watching  her  as  she  built  a  pile  of  little  sticks 
and  boiled  an  imaginary  little  kettle  over  them.  I  was 

so  glad  even  of  a  make-believe  fire  that  I  dropped  a 

41 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

copper  coin  beside  it,  and  the  mother  smiled  pensively 
as  if  grateful  but  not  very  hopeful  from  this  beneficence, 
though  after  reflection  I  had  made  my  gift  a  "  big  dog  " 
instead  of  a  "  small  dog,"  as  the  Spanish  call  a  ten 
and  a  five  centimo  piece.  The  child  bent  her  pretty 
head  shyly  on  one  side,  and  went  on  putting  more  sticks 
under  her  supposititious  pot. 

I  found  the  little  spectacle  reward  enough  in  itself 
and  in  a  sort  compensation  for  our  failure  to  see  the 
exquisite  alabaster  tomb  of  Juan  II.  and  his  wife  Isabel 
which  makes  the  Cartuja  Church  so  famous.  There  are 
a  great  many  beautiful  tombs  in  Burgos,  but  none  so 
beautiful  there  (or  in  the  whole  world  if  the  books  say 
true)  as  this ;  though  we  made  what  we  could  of  some 
in  the  museum,  where  we  saw  for  the  first  time  in  the 
recumbent  effigies  of  a  husband  and  wife,  with  features 
worn  away  by  time  and  incapable  of  expressing  the 
disappointment,  the  surprise  they  may  have  felt  in  the 
vain  effort  to  warm  their  feet  on  the  backs  of  the  little 
marble  angels  put  there  to  support  them.  We  made 
what  we  could,  too,  of  the  noted  Casa  de  Miranda,  the 
most  famous  of  the  palaces  in  which  the  Castilian 
nobles  have  long  ceased  to  live  at  Burgos.  There  we 
satisfied  our  longing  to  see  a  patio,  that  roofless  colon 
naded  court  which  is  the  most  distinctive  feature  of 
Spanish  domestic  architecture,  and  more  and  more  dis 
tinctively  so  the  farther  south  you  go,  till  at  Seville 
you  see  it  in  constant  prevalence.  At  Burgos  it  could 
never  have  been  a  great  comfort,  but  in  this  House  of 
Miranda  it  must  have  been  a  great  glory.  The  spaces 
between  many  of  the  columns  have  long  been  bricked 
in,  but  there  is  fine  carving  on  the  front  and  the  vault 
ing  of  the  staircase  that  climbs  up  from  it  in  neglected 
grandeur.  So  many  feet  have  trodden  its  steps  that 

they  are  worn  hollow  in  the  middle,  and  to  keep  from 

42 


BUKGOS    AND    THE    BITTEK    COLD    OF    BURGOS 

falling  you  must  go  up  next  the  wall.  The  object  in 
going  up  at  all  is  to  join  in  the  gallery  an  old  melan 
choly  custodian  in  looking  down  into  the  patio,  with  his 
cat  making  her  toilet  beside  him,  and  to  give  them  a 
fee  which  they  receive  with,  equal  calm.  Then,  when 
you  have  come  down  the  age-worn  steps  without  break 
ing  your  neck,  you  have  clone  the  House  of  Miranda, 
and  may  lend  yourself  with  what  emotion  you  choose 
to  the  fact  that  this  ancient  seat  of  hidalgos  has  now 
fallen  to  the  low  industry  of  preparing  pigskins  to  be 
wine-skins. 

I  do  not  think  that  a  company  of  hidalgos  in  com 
plete  medieval  armor  could  have  moved  me  more  strong 
ly  than  that  first  sight  of  these  wine-skins,  distended 
with  wine,  which  we  had  caught  in  approaching  the 
House  of  Miranda.  We  had  to  stop  in  the  narrow 
street,  and  let  them  pass  piled  high  on  a  vintner's 
wagon,  and  looking  like  a  load  of  pork:  they  are 
trimmed  and  left  to  keep  the  shape  of  the  living  pig, 
which  they  emulate  at  its  bulkiest,  less  the  head  and 
feet,  and  seem  to  roll  in  fatness.  It  was  joy  to  realize 
what  they  were,  to  feel  how  Spanish,  how  literary,  how 
picturesque,  how  romantic.  There  they  were  such  a& 
the  wine-skins  are  that  hang  from  the  trees  of  pleasant 
groves  in  many  a  merry  tale,  and  invite  all  swains  and 
shepherds  and  wandering  cavaliers  to  tap  their  bulk 
and  drain  its  rich  plethora.  There  they  were  such  as 
Don  Quixote,  waking  from  his  dream  at  the  inn,  saw 
them  malignant  giants  and  fell  enchanters,  and  slashed 
them  with  his  sword  till  he  had  spilled  the  room  half 
full  of  their  blood.  For  me  this  first  sight  of  them 
was  magic.  It  brought  back  my  boyhood  as  nothing 
else  had  yet,  and  I  never  afterward  saw  them  without 
a  return  to  those  days  of  my  delight  in  all  Spanish 
things. 

43 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TRAVELS 


Literature  and  its  associations,  no  matter  from  how 
lowly  suggestion,  must  always  be  first  for  me,  and  I 
still  thought  of  those  wine  -  skins  in  yielding  to  the 
claims  of  the  cathedral  on  my  wonder  and  reverence 
when  now  for  the  second  time  we  came  to  it.  The 
funeral  ceremony  of  the  dean  was  still  in  course,  and 
after  listening  for  a  moment  to  the  mighty  orchestral 
music  of  it — the  deep  bass  of  the  priests  swelling  up 
with  the  organ  notes,  and  suddenly  shot  with  the  shrill, 
sharp  trebles  of  the  choir-boys  and  pierced  with  the 
keen  strains  of  the  violins — we  left  the  cathedral  to 
the  solemn  old  ecclesiastics  who  sat  confronting  the 
bier,  and  once  more  deferred  our  more  detailed  and 
intimate  wonder.  We  went,  in  this  suspense  of  emo 
tion,  to  the  famous  Convent  of  Las  Huelgas,  which  in 
vites  noble  ladies  to  its  cloistered  repose  a  little  beyond 
the  town.  We  entered  to  the  convent  church  through  a 
sort  of  slovenly  court  where  a  little  girl  begged  severely, 
almost  censoriously,  of  us,  and  presently  a  cold-faced 
young  priest  came  and  opened  the  church  door.  Then 
we  found  the  interior  of  that  rank  Spanish  baroque 
which  escapes  somehow  the  effeminate  effusiveness  of 
the  Italian;  it  does  not  affect  you  as  decadent,  but  as 
something  vigorously  perfect  in  its  sort,  somberly  au 
thentic,  and  ripe  from  a  root  and  not  a  graft.  In  its 
sort,  the  high  altar,  a  gigantic  triune,  with  massive 
twisted  columns  and  swagger  statues  of  saints  and 
heroes  in  painted  wood,  is  a  prodigy  of  inventive  piety, 
and  compositely  has  a  noble  exaltation  in  its  powerful 
lift  to  the  roof. 

The  nuns  came  beautifully  dressed  to  hear  mass  at 
the  grilles  giving  into  the  chapel  adjoining  the  church ; 

44 


BURGOS    AND    THE    BITTER    COLD    OF    BURGOS 

the  tourist  may  have  his  glimpse  of  them  there  on  Sun 
days,  and  on  week-days  he  may  have  his  guess  of  their 
cloistered  life  and  his  wonder  how  much  it  continues 
the  tradition  of  repose  which  the  name  of  the  old  garden 
grounds  implies.  These  lady  nuns  must  he  of  patrician 
lineage  and  of  fortune  enough  to  defray  their  expense 
in  the  convent,  which  is  of  the  courtliest  origin,  for 
it  was  founded  eight  hundred  years  ago  by  Alfonso 
VIII.  "  to  expiate  his  sins  and  to  gratify  his  queen,'7 
who  probably  knew  of  them.  1  wish  now  I  had  known, 
while  I  was  there,  that  the  abbess  of  Las  Huelgas  had 
once  had  the  power  of  life  and  death  in  the  neighbor 
hood,  and  could  hang  people  if  she  liked;  I  cannot 
think  just  what  good  it  would  have  done  me,  but  one 
likes  to  realize  such  things  on  the  spot.  She  is  still 
one  of  the  greatest  ladies  of  Spain,  though  perhaps  not 
still  "  lady  of  ax  and  gibbet,"  and  her  nuns  are  of  like 
dignity.  In  their  chapel  are  the  tombs  of  Alfonso  and 
his  queen,  whose  figures  are  among  those  on  the  high 
altar  of  the  church.  She  was  Eleanor  Plantagenet,  the 
daughter  of  our  Henry  II.,  and  was  very  fond  of  Las 
Huelgas,  as  if  it  were  truly  a  rest  for  her  in  the  far- 
off  land  of  Spain;  I  say  our  Henry  II.,  for  in  the 
eleventh  century  we  Americans  were  still  English,  un 
der  the  heel  of  the  Normans,  as  not  the  fiercest  repub 
lican  of  us  now  need  shame  to  own. 

In  a  sense  of  this  historical  unity,  at  Las  Huelgas 
we  felt  as  much  at  home  as  if  we  had  been  English 
tourists,  and  we  had  our  feudal  pride  in  the  palaces 
where  the  Gastilian  nobles  used  to  live  in  Burgos  as 
we  returned  to  the  town.  Their  deserted  seats  are 
mostly  to  be  seen  after  you  pass  through  the  Moorish 
gate  overarching  the  stony,  dusty,  weedy  road  hard  by 
the  place  where  the  house  of  the  Cid  is  said  to  have 

stood.    The  arch,  so  gracefully  Saracenic,  was  the  first 

45 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

monument  of  the  Moslem  obsession  of  the  country 
which  has  left  its  signs  so  abundantly  in  the  south; 
here  in  the  far  north  the  thing  seemed  almost  pre 
historic,  almost  preglacially  old,  the  witness  of  a  world 
utterly  outdated.  But  perhaps  it  was  not  more  utterly 
outdated  than  the  residences  of  the  nobles  who  had 
once  made  the  ancient  Castilian  capital  splendid,  but 
were  now  as  irrevocably  merged  in  Madrid  as  the 
Arabs  in  Africa. 


VI 


Some  of  the  palaces  looked  down  from  the  narrow 
street  along  the  hillside  above  the  cathedral,  but  only 
one  of  them  was  kept  up  in  the  state  of  other  days; 
and  I  could  not  be  sure  at  what  point  this  street  had 
ceased  to  be  the  street  where  our  guide  said  every  one 
kept  cows,  and  the  ladies  took  big  pitchers  of  milk 
away  to  sell  every  morning.  But  I  am  sure  those  ladies 
could  have  been  of  noble  descent  only  in  the  farthest 
possible  remove,  and  I  do  not  suppose  their  cows  were 
even  remotely  related  to  the  haughty  ox-team  which 
blocked  the  way  in  front  of  the  palaces  and  obliged  us 
to  dismount  while  our  carriage  was  lifted  round  the 
cart.  Our  driver  was  coldly  disgusted,  but  the  driver 
of  the  ox-team  preserved  a  calm  as  perfect  as  if  he 
had  been  an  hidalgo  interested  by  the  incident  before 
his  gate.  It  delayed  us  till  the  psychological  moment 
when  the  funeral  of  the  dean  was  over,  and  we  could 
join  the  formidable  party  following  the  sacristan  from 
chapel  to  chapel  in  the  cathedral. 

We  came  to  an  agonized  consciousness  of  the  misery 
of  this  progress  in  the  Chapel  of  the  Constable,  where 
it  threatened  to  be  finally  stayed  by  the  indecision  of 

certain  ladies  of  our  nation  in  choosing  among  the  postal 

46 


BUEGOS    AND    THE    BITTER    COLD    OF    BURGOS 

cards  for  sale  there.  By  this  time  we  had  suffered 
much  from  the  wonders  of  the  cathedral.  The  sacristan 
had  not  spared  us  a  jewel  or  a  silvered  or  gilded  sacer 
dotal  garment  or  any  precious  vessel  of  ceremonial,  so 
that  our  jaded  wonder  was  inadequate  to  the  demand 
of  the  beautiful  tombs  of  the  Constable  and  his  lady 
upon  it.  The  coffer  of  the  Cid,  fastened  against  the 
cathedral  wall  for  a  monument  of  his  shrewdness  in 
doing  the  Jews  of  Burgos,  who,  with  the  characteristic 
simplicity  of  their  race,  received  it  back  full  of  sand 
and  gravel  in  payment  of  the  gold  they  had  lent  him 
in  it,  could  as  little  move  us.  Perhaps  if  we  could  have 
believed  that  he  finally  did  return  the  value  received, 
we  might  have  marveled  a  little  at  it,  but  from  what  we 
knew  of  the  Cid  this  was  not  credible.  We  did  what 
we  could  with  the  painted  wood  carving  of  the  cloister 
doors ;  the  life-size  head  of  a  man  with  its  open  mouth 
for  a  key-hole  in  another  portal ;  a  fearful  silver-plated 
chariot  given  by  a  rich  blind  woman  for  bearing  the 
Host  in  the  procession  of  Corpus  Christi;  but  it  was 
very  little,  and  I  am  not  going  to  share  my  failure  with 
the  reader  by  the  vain  rehearsal  of  its  details.  "No 
literary  art  has  ever  reported  a  sense  of  picture  or 
architecture  or  sculpture  to  me;  the  despised  postal 
card  is  better  for  that;  and  probably  throughout  these 
"  trivial  fond  records  "  I  shall  be  found  shirking  as 
much  as  I  may  the  details  of  such  sights,  seen  or  un 
seen,  as  embitter  the  heart  of  travel  with  unavailing 
regret  for  the  impossibility  of  remembering  them.  I 
must  leave  for  some  visit  of  the  reader's  own  the  large 
and  little  facts  of  the  many  chapels  in  the  cathedral  at 
Burgos,  and  I  will  try  to  overwhelm  him  with  my  sense 
of  the  whole  mighty  interior,  the  rich  gloom,  the  Gothic 
exaltation,  which  I  made  such  shift  as  I  could  to  feel 
in  the  company  of  those  picture-postal  amateurs.  It 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

was  like,  say,  a  somber  afternoon,  verging  to  the  twi 
light  of  a  cloudy  sunset,  so  that  when  I  came  out  of  it 
into  the  open  noon  it  was  like  emerging  into  a  clear 
morrow.  Perhaps  because  I  could  there  shed  the  harass 
ing  human  environment  the  outside  of  the  cathedral 
seemed  to  me  the  best  of  it,  and  we  lingered  there  for  a 
moment  in  glad  relief. 

VII 

One  house  in  some  forgotten  square  commemorates 
the  state  in  which  the  Castilian  nobles  used  to  live  in 
Burgos  before  Toledo,  and  then  Valladolid,  contested 
the  primacy  of  the  grim  old  capital  of  the  northern 
uplands.  We  stayed  for  a  moment  to  glance  from  our 
carriage  through  the  open  portal  into  its  leafy  patio 
shivering  in  the  cold,  and  then  we  bade  our  guide 
hurry  back  with  us  to  the  hot  luncheon  which  would 
be  the  only  heat  in  our  hotel.  But  to  reach  this  we 
had  to  pass  through  another  square,  which  we  found 
full  of  peasants'  ox-carts  and  mule-teams;  and  there 
our  guide  instantly  jumped  down  and  entered  into  a 
livelier  quarrel  with  those  peaceable  men  and  women 
than  I  could  afterward  have  believed  possible  in  Spain. 
I  bade  him  get  back  to  his  seat  beside  the  driver,  who 
was  abetting  him  with  an  occasional  guttural  and  whom 
I  bade  turn  round  and  go  another  way.  I  said  that  I 
had  hired  this  turnout,  and  I  was  master,  and  I  would 
be  obeyed ;  but  it  seemed  that  I  was  wrong.  My  proud 
hirelings  never  left  off  their  dispute  till  somehow  the 
ox-carts  and  mule-teams  were  jammed  together,  and  a 
thoroughfare  found  for  us.  Then  it  was  explained 
that  those  peasants  were  always  blocking  that  square 
in  that  way  and  that  I  had,  however  unwillingly,  been 

discharging  the  duty  of  a  public-spirited  citizen  in  com- 

48 


A   BURGOS   STREET 


BURGOS   AND    THE    BITTER    COLD    OF    BURGOS 

polling  them  to  give  way.  I  did  not  care  for  that;  I 
prized  far  more  the  quiet  with  which  they  had  taken 
the  whole  affair.  It  was  the  first  exhibition  of  the 
national  repose  of  manner  which  we  were  to  see  so 
often  again,  south  as  well  as  north,  and  which  I  find 
it  so  beautiful  to  have  seen.  In  a  Europe  abounding 
in  volcanic  Italians,  nervous  Germans,  and  exasperated 
Frenchmen,  it  was  comforting,  it  was  edifying  to  see 
those  Castilian  peasants  so  self-respectfully  self-pos 
sessed  in  the  wrong. 

From  time  to  time  in  the  opener  spaces  we  had  got 
into  the  sun  from  the  chill  shadow  of  the  narrow  streets, 
but  now  it  began  to  be  cloudy,  and  when  we  re-entered 
our  hotel  it  was  almost  as  warm  indoors  as  out.  We 
thought  our  landlord  might  have  so  far  repented  as  to 
put  on  the  steam;  but  he  had  sternly  adhered  to  his 
principle  that  the  radiators  were  enough  of  themselves ; 
and  after  luncheon  we  had  nothing  for  it  but  to  go  away 
from  Burgos,  and  take  with  us  such  scraps  of  im 
pression  as  we  could.  We  decided  that  there  was  no 
street  of  gayer  shops  than  those  gloomy  ones  we  had 
chanced  into  here  and  there;  I  do  not  remember  now 
anything  like  a  bookseller's  or  a  milliner's  or  a  draper's 
window.  There  was  no  sign  of  fashion  among  the 
ladies  of  Burgos,  so  far  as  we  could  distinguish  them; 
there  was  not  a  glowering  or  perking  hat,  and  I  do  not 
believe  there  was  a  hobble-skirt  in  all  the  austere  old 
capital  except  such  as  some  tourist  wore ;  the  black  lace 
mantillas  and  the  flowing  garments  of  other  periods 
flitted  by  through  the  chill  alleys  and  into  the  dim  door 
ways.  The  only  cheerfulness  in  the  local  color  was  to 
be  noted  in  the  caparison  of  the  donkeys,  which  we  were 
to  find  more  and  more  brilliant  southward.  Do  I  say 
the  only  cheerfulness?  I  ought  to  except  also  the  in 
voluntary  hilarity  of  a  certain  poor  man's  suit  which 

49 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

was  so  patched  together  of  myriad  scraps  that  it  looked 
as  if  cut  from  the  fabric  of  a  crazy-quilt.  I  owe  him 
this  notice  the  rather  because  he  almost  alone  did  not 
beg  of  us  in  a  city  which  swarmed  with  beggars  in  a 
forecast  of  that  pest  of  beggary  which  infests  Spain 
everywhere.  I  do  not  say  that  the  thing  is  without 
pieturesqueness,  without  real  pathos ;  the  little  girl  who 
kissed  the  copper  I  gave  her  in  the  cathedral  remains 
endeared  to  me  by  that  perhaps  conventional  touch  of 
poetry. 

There  was  compensation  for  the  want  of  presence 
among  the  ladies  of  Burgos,  in  the  leading  lady  of  the 
theatrical  company  who  dined,  the  night  before,  at  our 
hotel  with  the  chief  actors  of  her  support,  before  giving 
a  last  performance  in  our  ancient  city.  It  happened 
another  time  in  our  Spanish  progress  that  we  had  the 
society  of  strolling  players  at  our  hotel,  and  it  was  both 
times  told  us  that  the  given  company  was  the  best 
dramatic  company  in  Spain;  but  at  Burgos  we  did 
not  yet  know  that  we  were  so  singularly  honored.  The 
leading  lady  there  had  luminous  black  eyes,  large  like 
the  head-lamps  of  a  motor-car,  and  a  wide  crimson 
mouth  which  she  employed  as  at  a  stage  banquet 
throughout  the  dinner,  while  she  talked  and  laughed 
with  her  fellow-actors,  beautiful  as  bull-fighters,  clean 
shaven,  serious  of  face  and  shapely  of  limb.  They  were 
unaffectedly  professional,  and  the  lady  made  no  pre 
tense  of  not  being  a  leading  lady.  One  could  see  that 
she  was  the  kindest  creature  in  the  world,  and  that  she 
took  a  genuine  pleasure  in  her  huge,  practicable  eyes. 
At  the  other  end  of  the  room  a  Spanish  family — 
father,  mother,  and  small  children,  down  to  some  in 
arms — were  dining  and  the  children  wailing  as  Span 
ish  children  will,  regardless  of  time  and  place;  and 

when  the  nurse  brought  one  of  the  disconsolate  infants 

60 


BURGOS    AND    THE    BITTER    COLD    OF    BURGOS 

to  be  kissed  by  the  leading  lady  one's  heart  went  out 
to  her  for  the  amiability  and  abundance  of  her  caresses. 
The  mere  sight  of  their  warmth  did  something  to  sup 
ply  the  defect  of  steam  in  the  steam-heating  apparatus, 
but  when  one  got  beyond  their  radius  there  was  nothing 
for  the  shivering  traveler  except  to  wrap  himself  in 
the  down  quilt  of  his  bed  and  spread  his  steamer-rug 
over  his  knees  till  it  was  time  to  creep  under  both  of 
them  between  the  glacial  sheets. 

We  were  sorry  we  had  not  got  tickets  for  the  lead 
ing  lady's  public  performance;  it  could  have  been  so 
little  more  public;  but  we  had  not,  and  there  was 
nothing  else  in  Burgos  to  invite  the  foot  outdoors  after 
dinner.  From  my  own  knowledge  I  cannot  yet  say 
the  place  was  not  lighted;  but  my  sense  of  the  tangle 
of  streets  lying  night  long  in  a  rich  Gothic  gloom  shall 
remain  unimpaired  by  statistics.  Very  possibly  Burgos 
is  brilliantly  lighted  with  electricity;  only  they  have 
not  got  the  electricity  on,  as  in  our  steam-heated  hotel 
they  had  not  got  the  steam  on. 


VIII 


We  had  authorized  our  little  interpreter  to  engage 
tickets  for  us  by  the  mail-train  the  next  afternoon  for 
Valladolid;  he  pretended,  of  course,  that  the  places 
could  be  had  only  by  his  special  intervention,  and  by 
telegraphing  for  them  to  the  arriving  train.  We  ac 
cepted  his  romantic  theory  of  the  case,  and  paid  the 
bonus  due  the  railroad  agent  in  the  hotel  for  his  offices 
in  the  matter ;  we  would  have  given  anything,  we  were 
so  eager  to  get  out  of  Burgos  before  we  were  frozen 
up  there.  I  do  not  know  that  we  were  either  sur 
prised  or  pained  to  find  that  our  Chilian  friends  should 


FAMILIAE  SPANISH  TRAVELS 

have  got  seats  in  the  same  car  without  anything  of  our 
diplomacy,  by  the  simple  process  of  showing  their 
tickets.  I  think  our  little  interpreter  was  worth  every 
thing  he  cost,  and  more.  I  would  not  have  lost  a 
moment  of  his  company  as  he  stood  on  the  platform 
with  me,  adding  one  artless  invention  to  another  for 
my  pleasure,  and  successively  extracting  peseta  after 
peseta  from  me  till  he  had  made  up  the  sum  which 
he  had  doubtless  idealized  as  a  just  reward  for  his  half- 
day's  service  when  he  first  told  me  that  it  should  be 
what  I  pleased.  We  parted  with  the  affection  of 
fellow-citizens  in  a  strange  monarchical  country,  his 
English  growing  less  and  less  as  the  train  delayed,  and 
his  eyes  watering  more  and  more  as  with  tears  of  corn- 
patriotic  affection.  At  the  moment  I  could  have  envied 
that  German  princess  her  ability  to  make  sure  of  his 
future  companionship  at  the  low  cost  of  fifty  pesetas  a 
day;  and  even  now,  when  my  affection  has  had  time 
to  wane,  I  cannot  do  less  than  commend  him  to  any 
future  visitor  at  Burgos,  as  in  the  last  degree  amiable, 
and  abounding  in  surprises  of  intelligence  and  unex 
pected  feats  of  reliability. 


IV 
THE   VAKIETY  OF   VALLADOLID 


you  leave  Burgos  at  3.29  of  a  passably  sunny 
afternoon  you  are  not  at  once  aware  of  the  moral  dif 
ference  between  the  terms  of  your  approach  and  those 
of  your  departure.  You  are  not  changing  your  earth 
or  your  sky  very  much,  but  it  is  not  long  before  you 
are  sensible  of  a  change  of  mind  which  insists  more 
and  more.  There  is  the  same  long  ground-swell  of 
wheat-fields,  but  yesterday  you  were  followed  in  vision 
by  the  loveliness  of  the  frugal  and  fertile  Biscayan 
farms,  and  to-day  this  vision  has  left  you,  and  you  are 
running  farther  and  farther  into  the  economic  and  topo 
graphic  waste  of  Castile.  Yesterday  there  were  more 
or  less  agreeable  shepherdesses  in  pleasant  plaids  scat 
tered  over  the  landscape;  to-day  there  are  only  shep 
herds  of  three  days'  unshornness  ;  the  plaids  are  ragged, 
and  there  is  not  sufficient  compensation  in  the  caval 
cades  of  both  men  and  women  riding  donkeys  in  and 
out  of  the  horizons  on  the  long  roads  that  lose  and  find 
themselves  there.  Flocks  of  brown  and  black  goats, 
looking  large  as  cows  among  the  sparse  stubble,  do 
little  to  relieve  the  scene  from  desolation;  I  am  not 
sure  but  goats,  when  brown  and  black,  add  to  the  horror 
of  a  desolate  scene.  There  are  no  longer  any  white 
farmsteads,  or  friendly  villages  gathering  about  high- 
shouldered  churches,  but  very  far  away  to  the  eastward 
or  westward  the  dun  expanse  of  the  wheat-lands  is 

53 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

roughed  with  something  which  seems  a  cluster  of  muddy 
protuberances,  so  like  the  soil  at  first  it  is  not  distin 
guishable  from  it.  but  which  as  your  train  passes  nearer 
proves  to  be  a  town  at  the  base  of  tablelands,  without 
a  tree  or  a  leaf  or  any  spear  of  green  to  endear  it  to 
the  eye  as  the  abode  of  living  men.  You  pull  yourself 
together  in  the  effort  to  visualize  the  immeasurable 
fields  washing  those  dreary  towns  with  golden  tides  of 
harvest ;  but  it  is  difficult.  What  you  cannot  help  see 
ing  is  the  actual  nakedness  of  the  land  which  with  its 
spindling  stubble  makes  you  think  of  that  awful  mo 
ment  of  the  human  head,  when  utter  baldness  will  be  a 
relief  to  the  spectator. 


At  times  and  in  places,  peasants  were  scratching  the 
dismal  surfaces  with  the  sort  of  plows  which  Abel  must 
have  used,  when  subsoiling  was  not  yet  even  a  dream ; 
and  between  the  plowmen  and  their  ox-teams  it  seemed 
a  question  as  to  which  should  loiter  longest  in  the  un 
finished  furrow.  Now  and  then  the  rush  of  the  train 
gave  a  motionless  goatherd,  with  his  gaunt  flock,  an 
effect  of  comparative  celerity  to  the  rearward.  The 
women  riding  their  donkeys  over 

The  level  waste,  the  rounding  gray 

in  the  distance  were  the  only  women  we  saw  except 
those  who  seemed  to  be  keeping  the  stations,  and  one 
very  fat  one  who  came  to  the  train  at  a  small  town 
and  gabbled  volubly  to  some  passenger  who  made  no 
audible  response.  She  excited  herself,  but  failed  to 
rouse  the  interest  of  the  other  party  to  the  interview, 

54 


THE    VARIETY    OF    VALLADOLID 

who  remained  unseen  as  well  as  unheard.  I  could  the 
more  have  wished  to  know  what  it  wTas  all  about  be 
cause  nothing  happened  on  board  the  train  to  distract 
the  mind  from  the  joyless  landscape  until  we  drew 
near  Valladolid.  It  is  true  that  for  a  while  we  shared 
our  compartment  with  a  father  and  his  two  sons  who 
lunched  on  slices  of  the  sausage  which  seems  the  fa 
vorite  refection  of  the  Latin  as  well  as  the  Germanic 
races  in  their  travels.  But  this  drama  was  not  of  in 
tense  interest,  and  we  grappled  in  vain  with  the  ques 
tion  of  our  companions'  social  standard.  The  father, 
while  he  munched  his  bread  and  sausage,  read  a  news 
paper  which  did  not  rank  him  or  even  define  his  poli 
tics;  there  was  a  want  of  fashion  in  the  cut  of  the 
young  men's  clothes  and  of  freshness  in  the  polish  of 
their  tan  shoes  which  defied  conjecture.  When  they 
left  the  train  without  the  formalities  of  leave-taking 
which  had  hitherto  distinguished  our  Spanish  fellow- 
travelers,  we  willingly  abandoned  them  to  a  sort  of 
middling  obscurity ;  but  this  may  not  really  have  been 
their  origin  or  their  destiny. 

That  spindling  sparseness,  worse  than  utter  baldness, 
of  the  wheat  stubble  now  disappeared  with  cinematic 
suddenness,  and  our  train  was  running  past  stretches 
of  vineyard,  where,  among  the  green  and  purple  and 
yellow  ranks,  the  vintagers,  with  their  donkeys  and 
carts,  were  gathering  the  grapes  in  the  paling  light  of 
the  afternoon.  Again  the  scene  lacked  the  charm  of 
woman's  presence  which  the  vintage  had  in  southern 
France.  In  Spain  we  nowhere  saw  the  women  sharing 
the  outdoor  work  of  the  men;  and  we  fancied  their 
absence  the  effect  of  the  Oriental  jealousy  lingering 
from  centuries  of  Moorish  domination ;  though  we  could 
not  entirely  reconcile  our  theory  with  the  publicity  of 

their  washing  clothes  at  every  stream.    To  be  sure,  that 

55' 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

was  work  which  they  did  not  share  with  men  any  more 
than  the  men  shared  the  labor  of  the  fields  with  them. 

It  was  still  afternoon,  well  before  sunset,  when  we 
arrived  at  Valladolid,  where  one  of  the  quaintest  of  our 
Spanish  surprises  awaited  us.  We  knew  that  the  omni 
bus  of  the  hotel  we  had  chosen  would  be  the  shabbiest 
omnibus  at  the  station,  and  we  saw  without  great  alarm 
our  Chilian  friends  drive  off  in  an  indefinitely  finer 
vehicle.  But  what  we  were  not  prepared  for  was  the 
fact  of  octroi  at  Valladolid,  and  for  the  strange  be 
havior  of  the  local  customs  officer  who  stopped  us  on 
our  way  into  the  town.  He  looked  a  very  amiable 
young  man  as  he  put  his  face  in  at  the  omnibus  door, 
and  he  received  without  explicit  question  our  declara 
tion  that  we  had  nothing  taxable  in  our  trunks.  Then, 
however,  he  mounted  to  the  top  of  the  omnibus  and 
thumped  our  trunks  about  as  if  to  test  them  for  contra 
band  by  the  sound.  The  investigation  continued  on 
these  strange  terms  until  the  officer  had  satisfied  him 
self  of  our  good  faith,  when  he  got  down  and  with  a 
friendly  smile  at  the  window  bowed  us  into  Valladolid. 

In  its  way  nothing  could  have  been  more  charming ; 
and  we  rather  liked  being  left  by  the  omnibus  about 
a  block  from  our  hotel,  on  the  border  of  a  sort  of  prom 
enade  where  no  vehicles  were  allowed.  We  had  been 
halted  near  a  public  fountain,  where  already  the  moth 
ers  and  daughters  of  the  neighborhood  were  gathered 
with  earthen  jars  for  the  night's  supply  of  water.  The 
jars  were  not  so  large  as  to  overburden  any  of  them 
when,  after  just  delay  for  exchange  of  gossip,  the  girls 
and  goodwives  put  them  on  their  heads  and  marched 
erectly  away  with  them,  each  beautifully  picturesque 
irrespective  of  her  age  or  looks. 

The  air  was  soft,  and  after  Burgos,  warm ;  something 

southern,  unfelt  before,  began  to  qualify  the  whole 

56 


THE    VAKIETY    OF    VALLADOLID 

scene,  which  as  the  evening  fell  grew  more  dramatic, 
and  made  the  promenade  the  theater  of  emotions  per 
mitted  such  unrestricted  play  nowhere  else  in  Spain, 
so  far  as  we  were  witness.  On  one  side  the  place  was 
arcaded,  and  bordered  with  little  shops,  not  so  obtrusive 
ly  brilliant  that  the  young  people  who  walked  up  and 
down  before  them  were  in  a  glare  of  publicity.  A  little 
way  off  the  avenue  expanded  into  a  fine  oblong  place, 
where  some  firet  martyrs  of  the  Inquisition  were  burned. 
But  the  promenaders  kept  well  short  of  this,  as  they 
walked  up  and  down,  and  talked,  talked,  talked  in  that 
inexhaustible  interest  which  youth  takes  in  itself  the 
world  over.  They  were  in  the  standard  proportion  of 
two  girls  to  one  young  man,  or,  if  here  and  there  a  girl 
had  an  undivided  young  man  to  herself,  she  went  be 
fore  some  older  maiden  or  matron  whom  she  left  alto 
gether  out  of  the  conversation.  They  mostly  wore  the 
skirts  and  hats  of  Paris,  and  if  the  scene  of  the  fountain 
was  Arabically  oriental  the  promenade  was  almost 
Americanly  occidental.  The  promenaders  were  there 
by  hundreds;  they  filled  the  avenue  from  side  to  side, 
and 

The  delight  of  happy  laughter 

The  delight  of  low  replies 

that  rose  from  their  progress,  with  the  chirp  and 
whisper  of  their  feet  cheered  the  night  as  long  as  we 
watched  and  listened  from  the  sun  balcony  of  our  hotel. 


ii 

There  was  no  more  heat  in  the  radiators  of  the  hotel 
there  than  at  Burgos,  but  for  that  evening  at  least  there 
was  none  needed.  It  was  the  principal  hotel  of  Vallado- 

lid,  and  the  unscrubbed  and  unswept  staircase  by  which 

57 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

we  mounted  into  it  was  merely  a  phase  of  that  genial 
pause,  as  for  second  thought,  in  the  march  of  progress 
which  marks  so  much  of  the  modern  advance  in  Spain, 
and  was  by  no  means  an  evidence  of  arrested  develop 
ment.  We  had  the  choice  of  reaching  our  rooms  either 
through  the  dining-room  or  by  a  circuitous  detour  past 
the  pantries ;  but  our  rooms  had  a  proud  little  vestibule 
of  their  own,  with  a  balcony  over  the  great  square,  and 
if  one  of  them  had  a  belated  feather-bed  the  other  had 
a  new  hair  mattress,  and  the  whole  house  was  bril 
liantly  lighted  with  electricity.  As  for  the  cooking, 
it  was  delicious,  and  the  table  was  of  an  abundance  and 
variety  which  might  well  have  made  one  ashamed  of 
paying  so  small  a  rate  as  two  dollars  a  day  for  bed  and 
board,  wine  included,  and  very  fair  wine  at  that. 

In  Spain  you  must  take  the  bad  with  the  good,  for 
whether  you  get  the  good  or  not  you  are  sure  of  the 
bad,  but  only  very  exceptionally  are  you  sure  of  the 
bad  only.  It  was  a  pleasure  not  easily  definable  to 
find  our  hotel  managed  by  a  mother  and  two  daughters, 
who  gave  the  orders  obeyed  by  the  men-servants,  and 
did  not  rebuke  them  for  joining  in  the  assurance  that 
when  we  got  used  to  going  so  abruptly  from  the  dining- 
room  into  our  bedrooms  we  would  like  it.  The  elder 
of  the  daughters  had  some  useful  French,  and  neither 
of  the  younger  ladies  ever  stayed  for  some  ultimate 
details  of  dishabille  in  coming  to  interpret  the  mother 
and  ourselves  to  one  another  when  we  encountered  her 
alone  in  the  office.  They  were  all  thoroughly  kind 
and  nice,  and  they  were  supported  with  surpassing  in 
telligence  and  ability  by  the  chico,  a  radiant  boy  of 
ten,  who  united  in  himself  the  functions  which'  the 
amiable  inefficiency  of  the  porters  and  waiters  aban 
doned  to  him. 

When  we  came  out  to  dinner  after  settling  ourselves 

58 


THE    VAEIETY    OF    VALLADOLID 

in  our  almost  obtrusively  accessible  rooms,  we  were 
convinced  of  the  wisdom  of  our  choice  of  a  hotel  by 
finding  our  dear  Chilians  at  one  of  the  tables.  We 
rushed  together  like  two  kindred  streams  of  transat 
lantic  gaiety,  and  in  our  mingled  French,  Spanish,  and 
English  possessed  one  another  of  our  doubts  and  fears 
in  coming  to  our  common  conclusion.  We  had  already 
seen  a  Spanish  gentleman  whom  we  knew  as  a  fellow- 
sufferer  at  Burgos,  roaming  the  streets  of  Valladolid, 
and  in  what  seemed  a  disconsolate  doubt,  interrogating 
the  windows  of  our  hotel ;  and  now  we  learned  from 
the  Chilians  that  he  had  been  bitterly  disappointed  in 
the  inn  which  a  patrician  omnibus  had  borne  him  away 
to  from  our  envious  eyes  at  the  station.  We  learned 
that  our  South  American  compatriots  had  found  their 
own  chosen  hotel  impossible,  and  were  now  lodged  in 
rapturous  satisfaction  under  our  roof.  Their  happiness 
penetrated  us  with  a  glow  of  equal  content,  and  con 
firmed  us  in  the  resolution  always  to  take  the  worst 
omnibus  at  a  Spanish  station  as  the  sure  index  of  the 
best  hotel. 

The  street-cars,  which  in  Yalladolid  are  poetically 
propelled  through  lyre-shaped  trolleys  instead  of  our 
prosaic  broomstick  appliances,  groaned  unheeded  if  not 
unheard  under  our  windows  through  the  night,  and  we 
woke  to  find  the  sun  on  duty  in  our  glazed  balcony 
.  id  the  promenade  below  already  astir  with  life:  not 
>e  exuberant  young  life  of  the  night  before,  but  still 
{  ifficiently  awake  to  be  recognizable  as  life.  A  crippled 
newsboy  seated  under  one  of  the  arcades  was  crying 
his  papers;  an  Englishman  was  looking  at  a  plan  of 
Valladolid  in  a  shop  window ;  a  splendid  cavalry  officer 
went  by  in  braided  uniform,  and  did  not  stare  so  hard 
as  they  might  have  expected  at  some  ladies  passing 
in  mantillas  to  mass  or  market.  In  the  late  afternoon 

R  59 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

as  well  as  the  early  morning  we  saw  a  good  deal  of  the 
military  in  Valladolid,  where  an  army  corps  is  sta 
tioned.  From  time  to  time  a  company  of  infantry 
marched  through  the  streets  to  gay  music,  and  toward 
evening  slim  young  officers  began  to  frequent  the 
arcades  and  glass  themselves  in  the  windows  of  the 
shops,  their  spurs  clinking  on  the  pavement  as  they 
lounged  by  or  stopped  and  took  distinguished  attitudes. 
We  speculated  in  vain  as  to  their  social  quality,  and 
to  this  day  I  do  not  know  whether  "  the  career  is  open 
to  the  talents  "  in  the  Spanish  army,  or  whether  mili 
tary  rank  is  merely  the  just  reward  of  civil  rank. 
Those  beautiful  young  swells  in  riding-breeches  and 
tight  gray  jackets  approached  an  Italian  type  of  cav 
alry  officer;  they  did  not  look  very  vigorous,  and  the 
common  soldiers  we  saw  marching  through  the  streets, 
largely  followed  by  the  populace,  were  not  of  formi 
dable  stature  or  figure,  though  neat  and  agreeable 
enough  to  the  eye. 


in 


While  I  indulge  the  record  of  these  trivialities, 
which  I  am  by  no  means  sure  the  reader  will  care 
for  so  much,  I  feel  that  it  would  be  wrong  to  let  him 
remain  as  ignorant  of  the  history  of  Valladolid  as  I 
was  while  there.  My  ignorance  was  not  altogether  my 
fault ;  I  had  fancied  easily  finding  at  some  bookseller's 
under  the  arcade  a  little  sketch  of  the  local  history 
such  as  you  are  sure  of  finding  in  any  Italian  town, 
done  by  a  local  antiquary  of  those  always  mousing  in 
the  city's  archives.  But  the  bookseller's  boy  and  then 
the  boy's  mother  could  not  at  first  imagine  my  wish, 
and  when  they  did  they  could  only  supply  me  with  a 

sort  of  business  directory,  full  of  addresses  and  adver- 

60 


THE    VARIETY    OF    VALLADOLID 

tisements.  So  instead  of  overflowing  with  informa 
tion  when  we  set  out  on  our  morning  ramble,  we  meager- 
ly  knew  from  the  guide-books  that  Valladolid  had  once 
been  the  capital  of  Castile,  and  after  many  generations 
of  depression  following  the  removal  of  the  court,  had 
in  these  latest  days  renewed  its  strength  in  mercantile 
and  industrial  prosperity.  There  are  ugly  evidences 
of  the  prosperity  in  the  windy,  dusty  avenues  and  streets 
of  the  more  modern  town ;  but  there  are  lanes  and  alleys 
enough,  groping  for  the  churches  and  monuments  in 
suddenly  opening  squares,  to  console  the  sentimental 
tourist  for  the  havoc  which  enterprise  has  made.  The 
mind  readily  goes  back  through  these  to  the  palmy 
prehistoric  times  from  which  the  town  emerged  to  men 
tion  in  Ptolemy,  and  then  begins  to  work  forward  past 
Iberian  and  Roman  and  Goth  and  Moor  to  the  Castilian 
kings  who  made  it  their  residence  in  the  eleventh  cen 
tury.  The  capital  won  its  first  great  distinction  when 
Ferdinand  of  Aragon  and  Isabella  of  Oastile  were 
married  there  in  1469.  Thirty-five  years  later  these 
Catholic  Kings,  as  one  had  better  learn  at  once  to  call 
them  in  Spain,  let  Columbus  die  neglected  if  not  for 
gotten  in  the  house  recently  pulled  down,  where  he 
had  come  to  dwell  in  their  cold  shadow;  they  were 
much  occupied  with  other  things  and  they  could  not 
realize  that  his  discovery  of  America  was  the  great 
glory  of  their  reign;  probably  they  thought  the  con 
quest  of  Granada  was.  Later  yet,  by  twenty  years,  the 
dreadful  Philip  II.  was  born  in  Valladolid,  and  in 
1559  a  very  famous  auto  da  fe  was  celebrated  in  the 
Plaza  Mayor.  Fourteen  Lutherans  were  burned  alive 
for  their  heresy,  and  the  body  of  a  woman  suspected  of 
imperfect  orthodoxy  after  her  death  was  exhumed  and 
burned  with  them.  In  spite  of  such  precautions  as 

these,  and  of  all  the  pious  diligence  of  the  Holy  Office, 

61 


FAMILIAK  SPANISH  TEAVELS 

the  reader  will  hardly  believe  that  there  is  now  a  Span 
ish  Protestant  church  in  Valladolid;  but  such  is  the 
fact,  though  whether  it  derives  from  the  times  of  the 
Inquisition,  or  is  a  modern  missionary  church  I  do  not 
know.  That  auto  da  fe  was  of  the  greatest  possible 
distinction;  the  Infanta  Juana  presided,  and  the  uni 
versal  interest  was  so  great  that  people  paid  a  dollar 
and  twenty-five  cents  a  seat;  money  then  worth  five  or 
six  times  as  much  as  now.  Philip  himself  came  to 
another  auto  when  thirteen  persons  were  burned  in 
the  same  place,  and  he  always  liked  Valladolid ;  it  must 
have  pleased  him  in  a  different  way  from  Escorial, 
lying  flat  as  it  does  on  a  bare  plain  swept,  but  never 
thoroughly  dusted,  by  winds  that  blow  pretty  constantly 
over  it. 

While  the  Inquisition  was  purging  the  city  of  error 
its  great  university  was  renowning  it  not  only  through 
out  Spain,  but  in  France  and  Italy ;  students  frequented 
it  from  those  countries,  and  artists  came  from  many 
parts  of  Europe.  Literature  also  came  in  the  person 
of  Cervantes,  who  seems  to  have  followed  the  Spanish 
court  in  its  migrations  from  Valladolid  to  Toledo  and 
then  to  Madrid.  Here  also  came  one  of  the  greatest 
characters  in  fiction,  for  it  was  in  Valladolid  that  Gil 
Bias  learned  to  practise  the  art  of  medicine  under  the 
instruction  of  the  famous  Dr.  Sangrado. 


IV 

I  put  these  facts  at  the  service  of  the  reader  for 
what  use  he  will  while  he  goes  with  us  to  visit  the 
cathedral  in  Valladolid,  a  cathedral  as  unlike  that  of 
Burgos  as  the  severest  mood  of  Spanish  renaissance  can 
render  it.  In  fact,  it  is  the  work  of  Herrera,  the  archi 
tect  who  made  the  Escorial  so  grim,  and  is  the  expres- 

62 


A    STREET    LEADING    TO    THE    CATHEDRAL 


THE    VAEIETY    OF    VALLADOLID 

sion  in  large  measure  of  his  austere  mastery.  If  it 
had  ever  been  finished  it  might  have  been  quite  as 
dispiriting  as  the  Escorial,  but  as  it  has  only  one  of 
the  four  ponderous  towers  it  was  meant  to  have,  it  is 
not  without  its  alleviations,  especially  as  the  actual 
tower  was  rebuilt  after  the  fall  of  the  original  seventy 
years  ago.  The  grass  springs  cheerfully  up  in  the 
crevices  of  the  flagging  from  which  the  broken  steps 
falter  to  the  portal,  but  within  all  is  firm  and  solid. 
The  interior  is  vast,  and  nowhere  softened  by  decoration, 
but  the  space  is  reduced  by  the  huge  bulk  of  the  choir 
in  the  center  of  it;  as  we  entered  a  fine  echo  mounted 
to  the  cathedral  roof  from  the  chanting  and  intoning 
within.  When  the  service  ended  a  tall  figure  in  scarlet 
crossed  rapidly  toward  the  sacristy.  It  was  of  such 
imposing  presence  that  we  resolved  at  once  it  must  be 
the  figure  of  a  cardinal,  or  of  an  archbishop  at  the  least. 
But  it  proved  to  be  one  of  the  sacristans,  and  when 
we  followed  him  to  the  sacristy  with  half  a  dozen  other 
sightseers,  he  showed  us  a  silver  monstrance  weighing 
a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  and  decked  with  statues  of 
our  first  parents  as  they  appeared  before  the  Pall.  Be 
sides  this  we  saw,  much  against  our  will,  a  great  many 
ecclesiastical  vestments  of  silk  and  damask  richly 
wrought  in  gold  and  silver.  But  if  we  were  reluctant 
there  was  a  little  fat  priest  there  who  must  have  seen 
them  hundreds  of  times  and  had  still  a  childish  delight 
in  seeing  them  again  because  he  had  seen  them  so  often ; 
he  dimpled  and  smiled,  and  for  his  sake  we  pretended 
a  joy  in  them  which"  it  would  have  been  cruel  to  deny 
him.  I  suppose  we  were  then  led  to  the  sacrifice  at 
the  several  side  altars,  but  I  have  no  specific  recollection 
of  them ;  I  know  there  was  a  pale,  sick-looking  young 
girl  in  white  who  went  about  with  her  father,  and  moved 
compassion  by  her  gentle  sorrowfulness. 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

Of  the  University,  which  we  visited  next,  I  recall 
only  the  baroque  facade;  tho  interior  was  in  reparation 
and  I  do  not  know  whether  it  would  have  indemnified 
us  for  not  visiting  the  University  of  Salamanca.  That 
was  in  our  list,  but  the  perversity  of  the  time-table 
forbade.  You  could  go  to  Salamanca,  yes,  but  you 
could  not  come  back  except  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morn 
ing;  you  could  indeed  continue  on  to  Lisbon,  but  per 
haps  you  did  not  wish  to  see  Lisbon.  A  like  perversity 
of  the  time-table,  once  universal  in  Spain,  but  now  much 
reformed,  also  kept  us  away  from  Segovia,  which  was 
on  our  list.  But  our  knowledge  of  it  enabled  us  to  tell 
a  fellow-countrywoman  whom  we  presently  met  in  the 
museum  of  the  University,  how  she  could  best,  or 
worst,  get  to  that  city.  Our  speech  gave  us  away  to 
her,  and  she  turned  to  us  from  the  other  objects  of 
interest  to  explain  first  that  she  was  in  a  hotel  where 
she  paid  only  six  pesetas  a  day,  but  where  she  could  get 
no  English  explanation  of  the  time-table  for  any  money. 
She  had  come  to  Valladolid  with  a  friend  who  was 
going  next  day  to  Salamanca,  but  next  day  was  Sun 
day  and  she  did  not  like  to  travel  on  Sunday,  and 
Segovia  seemed  the  only  alternative.  We  could  not 
make  out  why,  or  if  it  came  to  that  why  she  should 
be  traveling  alone  through  Spain  with  such  a  slender 
equipment  of  motive  or  object,  but  we  perceived  she  was 
one  of  the  most  estimable  souls  in  the  world,  and  if  she 
cared  more  for  getting  to  Segovia  that  afternoon  than 
for  looking  at  the  wonders  of  the  place  where  we  were, 
we  could  not  blame  her.  We  had  to  leave  her  when 
we  left  the  museum  in  the  charge  of  two  custodians 
who  led  her,  involuntary  but  unresisting,  to  an  upper 
chamber  where  there  were  some  pictures  which  she 
could  care  no  more  for  than  for  the  wood  carvings  below. 

We  ourselves  cared  so  little  for  those  pictures  that 
64 


THE    VARIETY    OF    VALLADOLID 

we  would  not  go  to  see  them.  Pictures  you  can  see 
anywhere,  but  not  statuary  of  such  singular  interest, 
such  transcendant  powerfulness  as  those  carvings  of 
Berruguete  and  other  masters  less  known,  which  held 
us  fascinated  in  the  lower  rooms  of  the  museum.  They 
are  the  spoil  of  convents  in  the  region  about,  suppressed 
by  the  government  at  different  times,  and  collected  here 
with  little  relevancy  to  their  original  appeal.  Some 
are  Scriptural  subjects  and  some  are  figures  of  the 
dancers  who  take  part  in  certain  ceremonials  of  the 
Spanish  churches  (notably  the  cathedral  at  Seville), 
which  have  a  quaint  reality,  an  intense  personal  char 
acter.  They  are  of  a  fascination  which  I  can  hope 
to  convey  by  no  phrase  of  mine;  but  far  beyond  this 
is  the  motionless  force,  the  tremendous  repose  of  the 
figures  of  the  Roman  soldiers  taken  in  the  part  of  sleep 
ing  at  the  Tomb.  These  sculptures  are  in  wood,  life- 
size,  and  painted  in  the  colors  of  flesh  and  costume, 
with  every  detail  and  of  a  strong  mass  in  which  the 
detail  is  lost  and  must  be  found  again  by  the  wondering 
eye.  Beyond  all  other  Spanish  sculptures  they  seemed 
to  me  expressive  of  the  national  temperament ;  I  thought 
no  other  race  could  have  produced  them,  and  that  in 
their  return  to  the  Greek  ideal  of  color  in  statuary  they 
were  ingenuously  frank  and  unsurpassably  bold. 


It  might  have  been  the  exhaustion  experienced  from 
the  encounter  with  their  strenuousness  that  suddenly 
fatigued  us  past  even  the  thought  of  doing  any  more 
of  Valladolid  on  foot.  At  any  rate,  when  we  came  out 
of  the  museum  we  took  refuge  in  a  corner  grocery  (it 
seems  the  nature  of  groceries  to  seek  corners  the  world 

over)  and  asked  the  grocer  where  we  could  find  a  cab. 

65 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

The  grocer  was  young  and  kind,  and  not  so  busy  but 
he  could  give  willing  attention  to  our  case.  He  said 
he  would  send  for  a  cab,  and  he  called  up  from  his 
hands  and  knees  a  beautiful  blond  half -grown  boy  who 
was  scrubbing  the  floor,  and  despatched  him  on  this 
errand,  first  making  him  wipe  the  suds  off  his  hands. 
The  boy  was  back  wonderfully  soon  to  say  the  cab 
would  come  for  us  in  ten  minutes,  and  to  receive  with 
self-respectful  appreciation  the  peseta  which  rewarded 
his  promptness.  In  the  mean  time  we  feigned  a  small 
need  which  we  satisfied  by  a  purchase,  and  then  the 
grocer  put  us  chairs  in  front  of  his  counter  and  made 
us  his  guests  while  his  other  customers  came  and  went. 
They  came  oftener  than  they  went,  for  our  interest  in 
them  did  not  surpass  their  interest  in  us.  We  felt 
that  through  this  we  reflected  credit  upon  our  amiable 
host;  rumors  of  the  mysterious  strangers  apparently 
spread  through  the  neighborhood  and  the  room  was  soon 
filled  with  people  who  did  not  all  come  to  buy ;  but  those 
who  did  buy  were  the  most  interesting.  An  elderly 
man  with  his  wife  bought  a  large  bottle  which  the 
grocer  put  into  one  scale  of  his  balance,  and  poured 
its  weight  in  chick-peas  into  the  other.  Then  he  filled 
the  bottle  with  oil  and  weighed  it,  and  then  he  gave 
the  peas  along  with  it  to  his  customers.  It  seemed  a 
pretty  convention,  though  we  could  not  quite  make 
out  its  meaning,  unless  the  peas  were  bestowed  as  a 
sort  of  bonus;  but  the  next  convention  was  clearer  to 
us.  An  old  man  in  black  corduroy  with  a  clean-shaven 
face  and  a  rather  fierce,  retired  bull-fighter  air,  bought 
a  whole  dried  stock-fish  (which  the  Spaniards  eat  in 
stead  of  salt  cod)  talking  loudly  to  the  grocer  and  at 
us  while  the  grocer  cut  it  across  in  widths  of  two  inches 
and  folded  it  into  a  neat  pocketful;  then  a  glass  of 

wine  was  poured  from  a  cask  behind  the  counter,  and 

66 


THE    UNIVERSITY    OF    VALLADOLID 


THE    VAKIETY    OF    VALLADOLID 

the  customer  drank  it  off  in  honor  of  the  transaction 
with  the  effect  also  of  pledging  us  with  his  keen  eyes ; 
all  the  time  he  talked,  and  he  was  joined  in  conversa 
tion  by  a  very  fat  woman  who  studied  us  not  unkindly. 
Other  neighbors  who  had  gathered  in  had  no  apparent 
purpose  but  to  verify  our  outlandish  presence  and  to 
hear  my  occasional  Spanish,  which  was  worth  hearing 
if  for  nothing  but  the  effort  it  cost  me.  The  grocer 
accepted  with  dignity  the  popularity  we  had  won  him, 
and  when  at  last  our  cab  arrived  from  Mount  Ararat 
with  the  mire  of  the  subsiding  Deluge  encrusted  upon 
it  he  led  us  out  to  it  through  the  small  boys  who 
swarmed  upon  us  wherever  we  stopped  or  started  in 
Valladolid;  and  whose  bulk  was  now  much  increased 
by  the  coming  of  that  very  fat  woman  from  within  the 
grocery.  As  the  morning  was  bright  we  proposed  hav 
ing  the  top  opened,  but  here  still  another  convention 
of  the  place  intervened.  In  Valladolid  it  seems  that 
no  self-respecting  cabman  will  open  the  top  of  his  cab 
for  an  hour's  drive,  and  we  could  not  promise  to  keep 
ours  longer.  The  grocer  waited  the  result  of  our  parley, 
and  then  he  opened  our  carriage  door  and  bowed  us 
away.  It  was  charming;  if  he  had  a  place  on  Sixth 
Avenue  I  would  be  his  customer  as  long  as  I  lived  in 
New  York;  and  to  this  moment  I  do  not  understand 
why  I  did  not  bargain  with  that  blond  boy  to  come  to 
America  with  us  and  be  with  us  always.  But  there 
was  no  city  I  visited  in  Spain  where  I  was  not  sorry 
to  leave  some  boy  behind  with  the  immense  rabble  of 
boys  whom  I  hoped  never  to  see  again. 


VI 

After  this  passage  of  real  life  it  was  not  easy  to 
sink  again  to  the  level  of  art,  but  if  we  must  come 

67 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

down  it  there  could  have  been  no  descent  less  jarring 
than  that  which  left  us  in  the  exquisite  patio  of  the 
College  of  San  Gregorio,  founded  for  poor  students 
of  theology  in  the  time  of  the  Catholic  Kings.  The 
students  who  now  thronged  the  place  inside  and  out 
looked  neither  clerical  nor  poverty-stricken ;  but  I  dare 
say  they  were  good  Christians,  and  whatever  their  con 
dition  they  were  rich  in  the  constant  vision  of  beauty 
which  one  sight  of  seemed  to  us  more  than  we  merited. 
Perhaps  the  f  agade  of  the  college  and  that  of  the  neigh 
boring  Church  of  San  Pablo  may  be  elsewhere  sur 
passed  in  the  sort  of  sumptuous  delicacy  of  that  Gothic 
which  gets  its  name  of  plateresque  from  the  silversmith- 
ing  spirit  of  its  designs;  but  I  doubt  it.  The  wonder- 
fulness  of  it  is  that  it  is  not  mechanical  or  monotonous 
like  the  stucco  fretting  of  the  Moorish  decoration  which 
people  rave  over  in  Spain,  but  has  a  strength  in  its  re 
finement  which  comes  from  its  expression  in  the  ex 
quisitely  carven  marble.  When  this  is  grayed  with 
age  it  is  indeed  of  the  effect  of  old  silver  work;  but 
the  plateresque  in  Valladolid  does  not  suggest  fragility 
or  triviality;  its  grace  is  perhaps  rather  feminine  than 
masculine;  but  at  the  worst  it  is  only  the  ultimation 
of  the  decorative  genius  of  the  Gothic.  It  is,  at  any 
rate,  the  finest  surprise  which  the  local  architecture 
has  to  offer  and  it  leaves  one  wishing  for  more  rather 
than  less  of  it,  so  that  after  the  facade  of  San  Gregorio 
one  is  glad  of  it  again  in  the  walls  of  the  patio.,  whose 
staircases  and  galleries,  with  the  painted  wooden  beams 
of  their  ceilings,  scarcely  tempt  the  eye  from  it. 

We  thought  the  front  of  San  Pablo  deserved  a  second 
visit,  and  we  were  rewarded  by  finding  it  far  lovelier 
than  we  thought.  The  church  was  open,  and  when  we 
went  in  we  had  the  advantage  of  seeing  a  large  silver- 
gilt  car  moved  from  the  high  altar  down  the  nave  to 

68 


THE    VARIETY    OF    VALLADOLID 

a  side  altar  next  the  door,  probably  for  use  in  some 
public  procession.  The  tongue  of  the  car  was  pulled 
by  a  man  with  one  leg;  a  half -grown  boy  under  the 
body  of  it  hoisted  it  on  his  back  and  eased  it  along; 
and  a  monk  with  his  white  robe  tucked  up  into  his 
girdle  pushed  it  powerfully  from  behind.  I  did  not 
make  out  why  so  strange  a  team  should  have  been  em 
ployed  for  the  work,  but  the  spectacle  of  that  quaint 
progress  was  unique  among  my  experiences  at  Vallado- 
lid  and  of  a  value  which  I  wish  I  could  make  the  reader 
feel  with  me.  We  ourselves  were  so  interested  in  the 
event  that  we  took  part  in  it  so  far  as  to  push  aside  a 
bench  that  blocked  the  way,  and  we  received  a  grateful 
smile  from  the  monk  in  reward  of  our  zeal. 

We  were  in  the  mood  for  simple  kindness  because 
of  our  stiff  official  reception  at  the  Royal  Palace,  which 
we  visited  in  the  gratification  of  our  passion  for  patios. 
It  is  now  used  for  provincial  or  municipal  offices  and 
guarded  by  sentries  who  indeed  admitted  us  to  the 
courtyard,  but  would  not  understand  our  wish  (it  was 
not  very  articulately  expressed)  to  mount  to  the  cloi 
stered  galleries  which  all  the  guide-books  united  in 
pronouncing  so  noble,  with  their  decorative  busts  of  the 
Roman  Emperors  and  arms  of  the  Spanish  provinces. 
The  sculptures  are  by  the  school  of  Berruguete,  for 
whom  we  had  formed  so  strong  a  taste  at  the  museum; 
but  our  disappointment  was  not  at  the  moment  further 
embittered  by  knowing  that  Napoleon  resided  there  in 
1809.  We  made  what  we  could  of  other  patios  in  the 
vicinity,  especially  of  one  in  the  palace  across  from 
San  Gregorio,  to  which  the  liveried  porter  welcomed 
us,  though  the  noble  family  was  in  residence,  and  al 
lowed  us  to  mount  the  red-carpeted  staircase  to  a  closed 
portal  in  consideration  of  the  peseta  which  he  correctly 
foresaw.  It  was  not  a  very  characteristic  patio,  bare 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

of  flower  and  fountain  as  it  was,  and  others  more  fully 
appointed  did  not  entirely  satisfy  us.  The  fact  is  the 
patio  is  to  be  seen  best  in  Andalusia,  its  home,  where 
every  house  is  built  round  it,  and  in  summer  cooled 
and  in  winter  chilled  by  it.  But  if  we  were  not  willing 
to  wait  for  Seville,  Yalladolid  did  what  it  could;  and 
if  we  saw  no  house  with  quite  the  patio  we  expected 
we  did  see  the  house  where  Philip  II.  was  born,  unless 
the  enterprising  boy  who  led  us  to  it  was  mistaken ; 
in  that  case  we  were,  Ophelia-like,  the  more  deceived. 


VII 


Such  things  do  not  really  matter;  the  guide-book's 
object  of  interest  is  seldom  an  object  of  human  inter 
est  ;  you  may  miss  it  or  ignore  it  without  real  personal 
loss ;  but  if  we  had  failed  of  that  mystic  progress  of  the 
silver  car  down  the  nave  of  San  Pablo  we  should  have 
been  really  if  not  sensibly  poorer.  So  we  should  if 
we  had  failed  of  the  charming  experience  which  awaited 
us  in  our  hotel  at  lunch-time.  When  we  went  out  in 
the  morning  we  saw  a  table  spread  the  length  of  the 
long  dining-room,  and  now  when  we  returned  we  found 
every  chair  taken.  At  once  we  surmised  a  wedding 
breakfast,  not  more  from  the  gaiety  than  the  gravity 
of  the  guests;  and  the  head  waiter  confirmed  our  im 
pression:  it  was  indeed  a  boda.  The  party  was  just 
breaking  up,  and  as  we  sat  down  at  our  table  the  wed 
ding  guests  rose  from  theirs.  I  do  not  know  but  in 
any  country  the  women  on  such  an  occasion  would  look 
more  adequate  to  it  than  the  men;  at  any  rate,  there 
in  Spain  they  looked  altogether  superior.  It  was  not 
only  that  they  were  handsomer  and  better  dressed,  but 

that  they  expressed  finer  social  and  intellectual  quality. 

70 


CHURCH    OF    SAN    PABLO 


THE    VARIETY    OF    VALLADOLID 

All  the  faces  had  the  quiet  which  the  Spanish  face  has 
in  such  degree  that  the  quiet  seems  national  more  than 
personal;  but  the  women's  faces  were  oval,  though 
rather  heavily  based,  while  the  men's  were  squared,  with 
high  cheek-bones,  and  they  seemed  more  distinctly 
middle  class.  Men  and  women  had  equally  repose  of 
manner,  and  when  the  women  came  to  put  on  their 
headgear  near  our  corner,  it  was  with  a  surface  calm 
unbroken  by  what  must  have  been  their  inner  excite 
ment.  They  wore  hats  and  mantillas  in  about  the  same 
proportion;  but  the  bride  wore  a  black  mantilla  and  a 
black  dress  with  sprigs  of  orange  blossoms  in  her  hair 
and  on  her  breast  for  the  only  note  of  white.  Her  love 
ly,  gentle  face  was  white,  of  course,  from  the  universal 
powder,  and  so  were  the  faces  of  the  others,  who  talked 
in  low  tones  around  her,  with  scarcely  more  animation 
than  so  many  masks.  The  handsomest  of  them,  whom 
we  decided  to  be  her  sister,  arranged  the  bride's  man 
tilla,  and  was  then  helped  on  with  hers  by  the  others, 
with  soft  smiles  and  glances.  Two  little  girls,  imagin 
ably  sorry  the  feast  was  over,  suppressed  their  regret  in 
the  tutelage  of  the  maiden  aunts  and  grandmothers  who 
put  up  cakes  in  napkins  to  carry  home;  and  then  the 
party  vanished  in  unbroken  decorum.  When  they  were 
gone  we  found  that  in  studying  the  behavior  of  the  bride 
and  her  friends  we  had  not  only  failed  to  identify  the 
bridegroom,  but  had  altogether  forgotten  to  try. 


VIII 

The  terrible  Torquemada  dwelt  for  years  in  Valla- 
dolid  and  must  there  have  excogitated  some  of  the 
methods  of  the  Holy  Office  in  dealing  with  heresy.  As 
I  have  rioted,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  were  married 
there  and  Philip  II.  was  born  there;  but  I  think  the 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

reader  will  agree  with  me  that  the  highest  honor  of 
the  city  is  that  it  was  long  the  home  of  the  gallant 
gentleman  who  after  five  years  of  captivity  in  Algiers 
and  the  loss  of  his  hand  in  the  Battle  of  Lepanto,  wrote 
there,  in  his  poverty  and  neglect,  the  first  part  of  a 
romance  which  remains  and  must  always  remain  one 
of  the  first  if  not  the  very  first  of  the  fictions  of  the 
world.  I  mean  that 

Dear  son  of  memory,  great  heir  of  fame, 

Michael  Cervantes;  and  I  wish  I  could  pay  here  that 
devoir  to  his  memory  and  fame  which  squalid  circum 
stance  forbade  me  to  render  under  the  roof  that  once 
sheltered  him.  One  can  never  say  enough  in  his  praise, 
and  even  Valladolid  seems  to  have  thought  so,  for  the 
city  has  put  up  a  tablet  to  him  with  his  bust  above 
it  in  the  front  of  his  incredible  house  and  done  him 
the  homage  of  a  reverent  inscription.  It  is  a  very  little 
house,  as  small  as  Ariosto's  in  Ferrara,  which  he  said 
was  so  apt  for  him,  but  it  is  not  in  a  long,  clean  street 
like  that;  it  is  in  a  bad  neighborhood  which  has  not 
yet  outlived  the  evil  repute  it  bore  in  the  days  of  Cer 
vantes.  It  was  then  the  scene  of  nightly  brawls  and 
in  one  of  these  a  gentleman  was  stabbed  near  the  au 
thor's  house.  The  alarm  brought  Cervantes  to  the  door 
and  being  the  first  to  reach  the  dying  man  he  was 
promptly  arrested,  together  with  his  wife,  his  two  sis 
ters,  and  his  niece,  who  were  living  with  him  and  who 
were  taken  up  as  accessories  before  the  fact.  The 
whole  abomination  is  matter  of  judicial  record,  and 
it  appears  from  this  that  suspicion  fell  upon  the  gentle 
family  (one  sister  was  a  nun)  because  they  were  living 
in  that  infamous  place.  The  man  whose  renown  has 
since  filled  the  civilized  world  fuller  even  than  the 

name  of  his  contemporary,  Shakespeare  (they  died  on 

72 


THE    VARIETY    OF    VALLADOLID 

the  same  day),  was  then  so  unknown  to  the  authorities 
of  Valladolid  that  he  had  great  ado  to  establish  the 
innocence  of  himself  and  his  household.  To  be  sure, 
his  Don  Quixote  had  not  yet  appeared,  though  he  is 
said  to  have  finished  the  first  part  in  that  miserable 
abode  in  that  vile  region;  but  he  had  written  poems 
and  plays,  especially  his  most  noble  tragedy  of  "  Nu- 
mancia,"  and  he  had  held  public  employs  and  lived 
near  enough  to  courts  to  be  at  least  in  their  cold  shade. 
It  is  all  very  Spanish  and  very  strange,  and  perhaps 
the  wonder  should  be  that  in  this  most  provincial  of 
royal  capitals,  in  a  time  devoted  to  the  extirpation  of 
ideas,  the  fact  that  he  was  a  poet  and  a  scholar  did 
not  tell  fatally  against  him.  In  his  declaration  before 
the  magistrates  he  says  that  his  literary  reputation 
procured  him  the  acquaintance  of  courtiers  and  scholars, 
who  visited  him  in  that  pitiable  abode  where  the  ladies 
of  his  family  cared  for  themselves  and  him  with  the 
help  of  one  servant  maid. 

They  had  an  upper  floor  of  the  house,  which  stands 
at  the  base  of  a  stone  terrace  dropping  from  the  wide, 
dusty,  fly-blown  street,  where  I  stayed  long  enough  to 
buy  a  melon  (I  was  always  buying  a  melon  in  Spain) 
and  put  it  into  my  cab  before  I  descended  the  terrace 
to  revere  the  house  of  Cervantes  on  its  own  level.  There 
was  no  mistaking  it;  there  was  the  bust  and  the  in 
scription;  but  it  was  well  I  bought  my  melon  before 
I  ventured  upon  this  act  of  piety;  I  should  not  have 
had  the  stomach  for  it  afterward.  I  was  not  satisfied 
with  the  outside  of  the  house,  but  when  I  entered  the 
open  doorway,  meaning  to  mount  to  the  upper  floor,  it 
was  as  if  I  were  immediately  blown  into  the  street 
again  by  the  thick  and  noisome  stench  which  filled  the 
place  from  some  unmentionable  if  not  unimaginable 
source. 

73 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

It  was  like  a  filthy  insult  to  the  great  presence  whose 
sacred  shrine  the  house  should  have  been  religiously 
kept.  But  Cervantes  dead  was  as  forgotten  in  Vallado- 
lid  as  Cervantes  living  had  been.  In  some  paroxysm 
of  civic  pride  the  tablet  had  been  set  in  the  wall  and 
then  the  house  abandoned  to  whatever  might  happen. 
I  thought  foul  shame  of  Valladolid  for  her  neglect, 
and  though  she  might  have  answered  that  her  burden 
of  memories  was  more  than  she  could  bear,  that  she 
could  not  be  forever  keeping  her  celebrity  sweet,  still 
I  could  have  retorted,  But  Cervantes,  but  Cervantes! 
There  was  only  one  Cervantes  in  the  world  and  there 
never  would  be  another,  and  could  not  she  watch  over 
this  poor  once  home  of  his  for  his  matchless  sake? 
Then  if  Valladolid  had  come  back  at  me  with  the  fact 
that  Cervantes  had  lived  pretty  well  all  over  Spain, 
and  what  had  Seville  done,  Cordova  done,  Toledo  done, 
Madrid  done,  for  the  upkeep  of  his  divers  sojourns 
more  than  she  had  done,  after  placing  a  tablet  in  his 
house  wall  ? — certainly  I  could  have  said  that  this  did 
not  excuse  her,  but  I  must  have  owned  that  she  was 
not  alone,  though  she  seemed  most  to  blame. 


IX 


!N"ow  I  look  back  and  am  glad  I  had  not  consciously 
with  me,  as  we  drove  away,  the  boy  who  once  meant 
to  write  the  life  of  Cervantes,  and  who  I  knew  from 
my  recollection  of  his  idolatry  of  that  chief  of  Span 
iards  would  not  have  listened  to  the  excuses  of  Vallado 
lid  for  a  moment.  All  appeared  fair  and  noble  in 
that  Spain  of  his  which  shone  with  such  allure  far 
across  the  snows  through  which  he  trudged  morning  and 

evening  with  his  father  to  and  from  the  printing-office, 

74 


THE    VARIETY    OF    VALLADOLID 

and  made  his  dream  of  that  great  work  the  common 
theme  of  their  talk.  !STow  the  boy  is  as  utterly  gone 
as  the  father,  who  was  a  boy  too  at  heart,  but  who  died 
a  very  old  man  many  years  ago;  and  in  the  place  of 
both  is  another  old  man  trammeled  in  his  tangled  mem 
ories  of  Spain  visited  and  unvisited. 

It  would  be  a  poor  sort  of  make-believe  if  this  sur 
vivor  pretended  any  lasting  indignation  with  Vallado- 
lid  because  of  the  stench  of  Cervantes's  house.  There 
are  a  great  many  very  bad  smells  in  Spain  everywhere, 
and  it  is  only  fair  to  own  that  a  psychological  change 
toward  Valladolid  had  been  operating  itself  in  me 
since  luncheon  which  Valladolid  was  not  very  specifical 
ly  to  blame  for.  Up  to  the  time  the  wedding  guests 
left  us  we  had  said  Valladolid  was  the  most  interesting 
city  we  had  ever  seen,  and  we  would  like  to  stay  there 
a  week;  then,  suddenly,  we  began  to  turn  against  it. 
One  thing :  the  weather  had  clouded,  and  it  was  colder. 
But  we  determined  to  be  just,  and  after  we  left  the 
house  of  Cervantes  we  drove  out  to  the  promenades 
along  the  banks  of  the  Pisuerga,  in  hopes  of  a  better 
mind,  for  we  had  read  that  they  were  the  favorite  re 
sort  of  the  citizens  in  summer,  and  we  did  not  know 
but  even  in  autumn  we  might  have  some  glimpses  of 
their  recreation.  Our  way  took  us  sorrowfully  past 
hospitals  and  prisons  and  barracks ;  and  when  we  came 
out  on  the  promenade  we  found  ourselves  in  the  gloom 
of  close  set  mulberry  trees,  with  the  dust  thick  on  the 
paths  under  them.  The  leaves  hung  leaden  gray  on 
the  boughs  and  tEere  could  never  have  been  a  spear 
of  grass  along  those  disconsolate  ways.  The  river  was 
shrunken  in  its  bed,  and  where  its  current  crept  from 
pool  to  pool,  women  were  washing  some  of  the  rags 
which  already  hung  so  thick  on  the  bushes  that  it  was 
wonderful  there  should  be  any  left  to  wasH.  Squalid 
6  75 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

children  abounded,  and  at  one  point  a  crowd  of  people 
had  gathered  and  stood  looking  silently  and  motionless- 
ly  over  the  bank.  We  looked  too  and  on  a  sand-bar 
near  the  shore  we  saw  three  gendarmes  standing  with 
a  group  of  civilians.  Between  their  fixed  and  abso 
lutely  motionless  figures  lay  the  body  of  a  drowned 
man  on  the  sand,  poorly  clothed  in  a  workman's  dress, 
and  with  his  poor,  dead  clay-white  hands  stretched  out 
from  him  on  the  sand,  and  his  gray  face  showing  to 
the  sky.  Everywhere  people  were  stopping  and  star 
ing;  from  one  of  the  crowded  windows  of  the  nearest 
house  a  woman  hung  with  a  rope  of  her  long  hair  in 
one  hand,  and  in  the  other  the  brush  she  was  passing 
over  it.  On  the  bridge  the  man  who  had  found  the 
body  made  a  merit  of  his  discovery  which  he  dramatized 
to  a  group  of  spectators  without  rousing  them  to  a 
murmur  or  stirring  them  from  their  statuesque  fixity. 
His  own  excitement  in  comparison  seemed  indecent. 


It  was  now  three  o'clock  and  I  thought  I  might  be 
in  time  to  draw  some  money  on  my  letter  of  credit,  at 
the  bank  which  we  had  found  standing  in  a  pleasant 
garden  in  the  course  of  our  stroll  through  the  town  the 
night  before.  We  had  said,  How  charming  it  would 
be  to  draw  money  in  such  an  environment;  and  full 
of  the  romantic  expectation,  I  offered  my  letter  at  the 
window,  where  after  a  discreet  interval  I  managed  to 
call  from  their  preoccupation  some  unoccupied  persons 
within.  They  had  not  a  very  financial  air,  and  I 
thought  them  the  porters  they  really  were,  with  some 
fear  that  I  had  come  after  banking-hours.  But  they 

joined  in  reassuring  me,  and  told  me  that  if  I  would 

76 


THE    VARIETY    OF    VALLADOLID 

return  after  five  o'clock  the  proper  authorities  would 
be  there. 

I  did  not  know  then  what  late  hours  Spain  kept  in 
every  way;  but  I  concealed  my  surprise;  and  I  came 
back  at  the  time  suggested,  and  offered  my  letter  at 
the  window  with  a  request  for  ten  pounds,  which  I 
fancied  I  might  need.  A  clerk  took  the  letter  and 
scrutinized  it  with  a  deliberation  which  I  thought  it 
scarcely  merited.  His  self-respect  doubtless  would  not 
suffer  him  to  betray  that  he  could  not  read  the  English 
of  it;  and  with  an  air  of  wishing  to  consult  higher 
authority  he  carried  it  to  another  clerk  at  a  desk  across 
the  room.  To  this  official  it  seemed  to  come  as  some 
thing  of  a  blow.  He  made  a  show  of  reading  it  several 
times  over,  inside  and  out,  and  then  from  the  pigeon 
hole  of  his  desk  he  began  to  accumulate  what  I  supposed 
corroborative  documents,  or  pieces  justificatives.  When 
he  had  amassed  a  heap  several  inches  thick,  he  rose 
and  hurried  out  through  the  gate,  across  the  hall  where 
I  sat,  into  a  room  beyond.  He  returned  without  in 
any  wise  referring  himself  to  me  and  sat  down  at  his 
desk  again.  The  first  clerk  explained  to  the  anxious 
face  with  which  I  now  approached  him  that  the  second 
clerk  had  taken  my  letter  to  the  director.  I  went  back 
to  my  seat  and  waited  fifteen  minutes  longer,  fifteen 
having  passed  already;  then  I  presented  my  anxious 
face,  now  somewhat  indignant,  to  the  first  clerk  again. 
"  What  is  the  director  doing  with  my  letter  3"  The 
first  clerk  referred  my  question  to  the  second  clerk, 
who  answered  from  his  place,  "  He  is  verifying  the 
signature."  "  But  what  signature  ?"  I  wondered  to 
myself,  reflecting  that  he  had  as  yet  had  none  of  mine. 
Could  it  be  the  signature  of  my  ISTew  York  banker 
or  my  London  one  ?  I  repaired  once  more  to  the  win 
dow,  after  another  wait,  and  said  in  polite  but  firm 

77 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

Castilian,  "  Do  me  the  favor  to  return  me  my  letter." 
A  commotion  of  protest  took  place  within  the  barrier, 
followed  by  the  repeated  explanation  that  the  director 
was  verifying  the  signature.  I  returned  to  my  place 
and  considered  that  the  suspicious  document  which  I 
had  presented  bore  record  of  moneys  drawn  in  London, 
in  Paris,  in  Tours,  in  San  Sebastian,  which  ought  to 
have  allayed  all  suspicion;  then  for  the  last  time  I 
repaired  to  the  window;  more  in  anger  now  than  in 
sorrow,  and  gathered  my  severest  Spanish  together  for 
a  final  demand :  "  Do  me  the  favor  to  give  me  back 
my  letter  without  the  pounds  sterling."  The  clerks 
consulted  together;  one  of  them  decided  to  go  to  the 
director's  room,  and  after  a  dignified  delay  he  came 
back  with  my  letter,  and  dashed  it  down  before  me  with 
the  only  rudeness  I  experienced  in  Spain. 

I  was  glad  to  get  it  on  any  terms;  it  was  only  too 
probable  that  it  would  have  been  returned  without  the 
money  if  I  had  not  demanded  it;  and  I  did  what  I 
could  with  the  fact  that  this  amusing  financial  trans 
action,  involving  a  total  of  fifty  dollars,  had  taken  place 
in  the  chief  banking-house  of  one  of  the  commercial 
and  industrial  centers  of  the  country.  Valladolid  is 
among  other  works  the  seat  of  the  locomotive  works 
of  the  northern  railway  lines,  and  as  tHese  machines 
average  a  speed  of  twenty-five  miles  an  hour  with"  ex 
press  trains,  it  seemed  strange  to  me  that  something 
like  their  rapidity  should  not  have  governed  the  action 
of  that  bank  director  in  forcing  me  to  ask  back  my 
discredited  letter  of  credit. 


XT 

That  evening  tEe  young  voices  an3  tKe  young  feet 

began  to  chirp  again  under  our  sun  balcony.    But  there 

78 


THE    YAKIETY    OF    VALLADOLID 

had  been  no  sun  in  it  since  noon  and  presently  a  cold 
thin  rain  was  falling  and  driving  the  promenaders 
under  the  arcades,  where  they  were  perhaps  not  un- 
happier  for  being  closely  massed.  We  missed  the 
prettiness  of  the  spectacle,  though  as  yet  we  did  not 
know  that  it  was  the  only  one  of  the  sort  we  might 
hope  to  see  in  Spain,  where  women  walk  little  indoors, 
and  when  they  go  out,  drive  and  increase  in  the  sort  of 
loveliness  which  may  be  weighed  and  measured.  Even 
under  the  arcades  the  promenade  ceased  early  and  in 
the  adjoining  Plaza  Mayor,  where  the  autos  da  fe  once 
took  place,  the  rain  still  earlier  made  an  end  of  the 
municipal  music,  and  the  dancing  of  the  lower  ranks 
of  the  people.  But  we  were  fortunate  in  our  Chilian 
friend's  representation  of  the  dancing;  he  came  to  our 
table  at  dinner,  and  did  with  charming  sympathy  a 
mother  waltzing  with  her  babe  in  arms  for  a  partner. 

He  came  to  the  omnibus  at  the  end  of  the  promenade, 
when  we  were  starting  for  the  station  next  morning, 
not  yet  shaven,  in  his  friendly  zeal  to  make  sure  of 
seeing  us  off,  and  we  parted  with  confident  prophecies 
of  meeting  each  other  again  in  Madrid.  We  had  al 
ready  bidden  adieu  with  effusion  to  our  landlady-sisters- 
and-mother,  and  had  wished  to  keep  forever  our  own 
the  adorable  cJiico  who,  when  cautioned  against  trying 
to  carry  a  very  heavy  bag,  valiantly  jerked  it  to  his 
shoulder  and  made  off  with  it  to  the  omnibus,  as  if  it 
were  nothing.  I  do  not  believe  such  a  boy  breathes 
out  of  Spain,  where  I  hope  he  will  grow  up  to  the 
Oriental  calm  of  so  many  of  his  countrymen,  and  rest 
from  the  toils  of  his  nonage.  At  the  last  moment  after 
the  Chilian  had  left  us,  we  perceived  that  one  of  our 
trunks  Had  been  forgotten,  and  the  chico  coursed  back 
to  the  hotel  for  it  and  returned  with  the  delinquent 

porter  bearing  it,  as  if  to  make  sure  of  his  bringing  it. 

79 


FAMILIAK  SPANISH  TRAVELS 

When  it  was  put  on  top  of  the  omnibus,  and  we  were 
in  probably  unparalleled  readiness  for  starting  to  the 
station,  at  an  hour  when  scarcely  anybody  else  in 
Valladolid  was  up,  a  mule  composing  a  portion  of  our 
team  immediately  fell  down,  as  if  startled  too  abruptly 
from  a  somnambulic  dream.  I  really  do  not  remember 
how  it  was  got  to  its  feet  again;  but  I  remember  the 
anguish  of  the  delay  and  the  fear  that  we  might  not 
be  able  to  escape  from  Valladolid  after  all  our  pains 
in  trying  for  the  Sud-Express  at  that  hour;  and  I 
remember  that  when  we  reached  the  station  we  found 
that  the  Sud-Express  was  forty  minutes  behind  time 
and  that  we  were  a  full  hour  after  that  before  starting 
for  Madrid. 


V 

PHASES  OF  MADRID 

I  FANCIED  that  a  kind  of  Gothic  gloom  was  ex 
pressed  in  the  black  wine-skins  of  Old  Castile,  as  con 
trasted  with  the  fairer  color  of  those  which  began 
to  prevail  even  so  little  south  of  Burgos  as  Valladolid. 
I  am  not  sure  that  the  Old  Castiliaii  wine-skins  derived 
their  blackness  from  the  complexion  of  the  pigs,  or  that 
there  are  more  pale  pigs  in  the  south  than  in  the  north 
of  Spain ;  I  am  sure  only  of  a  difference  in  the  color 
of  the  skins,  which  may  have  come  from  a  difference 
in  the  treatment  of  them.  At  a  venture  I  should  not 
say  that  there  were  more  black  pigs  in  Old  Castile 
than  in  Andalusia,  as  we  observed  them  from  the  train, 
rooting  among  the  unpromising  stubble  of  the  wheat- 
lands.  Rather  I  should  say  that  the  prevailing  pig  of 
all  the  Spains  was  brown,  corresponding  to  the  red 
dish  blondness  frequent  among  both  the  Visigoths  and 
the  Moors.  The  black  pig  was  probably  the  original, 
prehistoric  Iberian  pig,  or  of  an  Italian  strain  imported 
by  the  Romans ;  but  I  do  not  offer  this  as  more  than  a 
guess.  The  Visigothic  or  Arabic  pig  showed  himself 
an  animal  of  great  energy  and  alertness  wherever  we 
saw  him,  and  able  to  live  upon  the  lean  of  the  land 
where  it  was  leanest.  At  his  youngest  he  abounded 
in  the  furrows  and  hollows,  matching  his  russet  with 
the  russet  of  the  soil  and  darting  to  and  fro  with  the 

quickness  of  a  hare.    He  was  always  of  an  ingratiating 

81 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

humorousness  and  endeared  himself  by  an  apparent 
readiness  to  enter  into  any  joke  that  was  going,  especial 
ly  that  of  startling  the  pedestrian  by  his  own  sudden 
apparition  from  behind  a  tuft  of  grass  or  withered 
stalk.  I  will  not  be  sure,  but  I  think  we  began  to  see 
his  kind  as  soon  as  we  got  out  of  Yalladolid,  when 
we  began  running  through  a  country  wooded  with 
heavy,  low-crowned  pines  that  looked  like  the  stone- 
pines  of  Italy,  but  were  probably  not  the  same.  After 
twenty  miles  of  this  landscape  the  brown  pig  with 
pigs  of  other  complexions,  as  much  guarded  as  pos 
sible,  multiplied  among  the  patches  of  vineyard.  He 
had  there  the  company  of  tall  black  goats  and  rather 
unhappy-looking  black  sheep,  all  of  whom  he  excelled 
in  the  art  of  foraging  among  the  vines  and  the  stub 
ble  of  the  surrounding  wheat-lands.  After  the  vine 
yards  these  opened  and  stretched  themselves  wearily, 
from  low  dull  sky  to  low  dull  sky,  nowise  cheered  in 
aspect  by  the  squalid  peasants,  scratching  their  tawny 
expanses  with  those  crooked  prehistoric  sticks  which 
they  use  for  plows  in  Spain.  It  was  a  dreary  land 
scape,  but  it  was  good  to  be  out  of  Valladolid  on  any 
terms,  and  especially  good  to  be  away  from  the  station 
which  we  had  left  emulating  the  odors  of  the  house  of 
Cervantes. 


There  had  been  the  usual  alarm  about  the  lack  of 
places  in  the  Sud-Express  which  we  were  to  take  at 
Valladolid,  but  we  chanced  getting  them,  and  our  bold 
ness  was  rewarded  by  getting  a  whole  compartment 
to  ourselves,  and  a  large,  fat  friendly  conductor  with 
an  eye  out  for  tips  in  every  direction.  The  lunch  in 

our  dining-car  was  for  the  first  time  in  Spain  not  worth 

82 


PHASES    OF    MADRID 

the  American  price  asked  for  it ;  everywhere  else  on  the 
Spanish  trains  I  must  testify  that  the  meals  were  ex 
cellent  and  abundant ;  and  the  refection  may  now  have 
felt  in  some  obscure  sort  the  horror  of  the  world  in 
which  the  Sud-Express  seemed  to  have  lost  itself.  The 
scene  was  as  alien  to  any  other  known  aspect  of  our 
comfortable  planet  as  if  it  were  the  landscape  of  some 
star  condemned  for  the  sins  of  its  extinct  children  to 
wander  through  space  in  unimaginable  desolation.  It 
seldom  happens  in  Spain  that  the  scenery  is  the  same 
on  both  sides  of  the  railroad  track,  but  here  it  was 
malignly  alike  on  one  hand  and  on  the  other,  though 
we  seemed  to  be  running  along  the  slope  of  an  upland, 
so  that  the  left  hand  was  higher  and  the  right  lower. 
It  was  more  as  if  we  were  crossing  the  face  of  some 
prodigious  rapid,  whose  surges  were  the  measureless 
granite  boulders  tossing  everywhere  in  masses  from  the 
size  of  a  man's  fist  to  the  size  of  a  house.  In  a  wild 
chaos  they  wallowed  against  one  another,  the  greater 
bearing  on  their  tops  or  between  them  on  their  shoulders 
smaller  regular  or  irregular  masses  of  the  same  gray 
stone.  Everywhere  among  their  awful  shallows  grew 
gray  live-oaks,  and  in  among  the  rocks  and  trees  spread 
tufts  of  gray  shrub.  Suddenly,  over  the  frenzy  of 
this  mad  world,  a  storm  of  cold  rain  broke  whirling, 
and  cold  gray  mists  drove,  blinding  the  windows  and 
chilling  us  where  we  sat  within.  From  time  to  time 
the  storm  lifted  and  showed  again  this  vision  of  nature 
hoary  as  if  with  immemorial  eld;  if  at  times  we  seemed 
to  have  run  away  from  it  again  it  closed  in  upon  us 
and  held  us  captive  in  its  desolation. 

With  longer  and  longer  intervals  of  relief  it  closed 
upon  us  for  the  last  time  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
gloomiest  pile  that  ever  a  man  built  for  his  life,  his 
death  and  his  praver  between;  but  before  we  came  to 

83 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

the  palace-tomb  of  the  Escorial,  we  had  clear  in  the 
distance  the  vision  of  the  walls  and  roofs  and  towers 
of  the  medieval  city  of  Avila.  It  is  said  to  be  the  per- 
f ectest  relic  of  the  Middle  Ages  after  or  before  Rothen- 
burg,  and  we  who  had  seen  Rothenburg  solemnly  prom 
ised  ourselves  to  come  back  some  day  from  Madrid 
and  spend  it  in  Avila.  But  we  never  came,  and  Avila 
remains  a  vision  of  walls  and  roofs  and  towers  tawny 
gray  glimpsed  in  a  rift  of  the  storm  that  again  swept 
toward  the  Spanish  capital. 


ii 


We  were  very  glad  indeed  to  get  to  Madrid,  though 
dismayed  by  apprehensions  of  the  octroi  which  we  felt 
sure  awaited  us.  We  recalled  the  behavior  of  the  ami 
able  officer  of  Valladolid  who  bumped  our  baggage 
about  on  the  roof  of  our  omnibus,  and  we  thought  that 
in  Madrid  such  an  officer  could  not  do  less  than  shatter 
our  boxes  and  scatter  their  contents  in  the  streaming 
street.  What  was  then  our  surprise,  our  joy,  to  find 
that  in  Madrid  there  was  no  octroi  at  all,  and  that  the 
amiable  mozos  who  took  our  things  hardly  knew  what 
we  meant  when  we  asked  for  it.  At  Madrid  they 
scarcely  wanted  our  tickets  at  the  gate  of  the  station, 
and  we  found  ourselves  in  the  soft  embrace  of  mod 
ernity,  so  dear  after  the  feudal  rigors  of  Old  Castile, 
when  we  mounted  into  a  motor-bus  and  sped  away 
through  the  spectacular  town,  so  like  Paris,  so  like 
Rome  as  to  have  no  personality  of  its  own  except  in 
this  similarity,  and  never  stopped  till  the  liveried 
service  swarmed  upon  us  at  the  door  of  the  Hotel  Ritz. 

Here  the  modernity  which  had  so  winningly  greeted 

us  at  the  station  welcomed  us  more  and  consolingly. 

84 


PHASES    OF    MADRID 

There  was  not  only  steam-heating,  but  the  steam  was 
on !  It  wanted  but  a  turn  of  the  hand  at  the  radiators, 
and  the  rooms  were  warm.  The  rooms  themselves  re 
sponded  to  our  appeal  and  looked  down  into  a  silent 
inner  court,  deaf  to  the  clatter  of  the  streets,  and  sleep 
haunted  the  very  air,  distracted,  if  at  all,  by  the  instant 
facility  and  luxury  of  the  appliances.  Was  it  really 
in  Spain  that  a  metallic  tablet  at  the  bed-head  invited 
the  wanderer  to  call  with  one  button  for  the  camerero, 
another  for  the  earner  era,  and  another  for  the  mozo, 
who  would  all  instantly  come  speaking  English  like 
so  many  angels?  Were  we  to  have  these  beautiful 
chambers  for  a  humble  two  dollars  and  forty  cents  a 
day ;  and  if  it  was  true,  why  did  we  ever  leave  them 
and  try  for  something  ever  so  much  worse  and  so  very 
little  cheaper  ?  Let  me  be  frank  with  the  reader  whom 
I  desire  for  my  friend,  and  own  that  we  were  frightened 
from  the  Ritz  Hotel  by  the  rumor  of  Ritz  prices.  I 
paid  my  bill  there,  which  was  imagined  with  scrupu 
lous  fullness  to  the  last  possible  centimo,  and  so  I  may 
disinterestedly  declare  that  the  Ritz  is  the  only  hotel 
in  Madrid  where  you  get  the  worth  of  your  money, 
even  when  the  money  seems  more  but  scarcely  is  so. 
In  all  Spain  I  know  of  only  two  other  hotels  which 
may  compare  with  it,  and  these  are  the  English  hotels, 
one  at  Ronda  and  one  at  Algeciras.  If  I  add  falter- 
ingly  the  hotel  where  we  stayed  a  night  in  Toledo 
and  the  hotel  where  we  abode  a  fortnight  in  Seville, 
I  heap  the  measure  of  merit  and  press  it  down. 

We  did  not  begin  at  once  our  insensate  search  for 
another  hotel  in  Madrid;  but  the  sky  had  cleared  and 
we  went  out  into  the  strange  capital  so  uncharacter 
istically  characteristic,  to  find  tea  at  a  certain  cafe  we 
had  heard  of.  It  was  in  the  Calle  de  Alcala  (a  name 
which  so  richly  stimulates  the  imagination),  and  it 

85 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

looked  out  across  this  handsome  street,  to  a  club  that  I 
never  knew  the  name  of,  where  at  a  series  of  open 
windows  was  a  flare  of  young  men  in  silk  hats  leaning 
out  on  their  elbows  and  letting  no  passing  fact  of  the 
avenue  escape  them.  It  was  worth  their  study,  and  if 
I  had  been  an  idle  young  Spaniard,  or  an  idle  old  one, 
I  would  have  asked  nothing  better  than  to  spend  my 
Sunday  afternoon  poring  from  one  of  those  windows 
on  my  well-known  world  of  Madrid  as  it  babbled  by. 
Even  in  my  quality  of  alien,  newly  arrived  and  igno 
rant  of  that  world,  I  already  felt  its  fascination. 

Sunday  in  Spain  is  perhaps  different  from  other  days 
of  the  week  to  the  Spanish  sense,  but  to  the  traveler 
it  is  too  like  them  to  be  distinguishable  except  in  that 
guilty  Sabbath  consciousness  which  is  probably  an  effect 
from  original  sin  in  every  Protestant  soul.  The  casual 
eye  could  not  see  but  that  in  Madrid  every  one  seemed 
as  much  or  as  little  at  work  as  on  any  other  day.  My 
own  casual  eye  noted  that  the  most  picturesquely  evi 
dent  thing  in  the  city  was  the  country  life  which  seemed 
so  to  pervade  it.  In  the  Calle  de  Alcala,  flowing  to 
the  Prado  out  of  the  Puerta  del  Sol,  there  passed  a 
current  of  farm-carts  and  farm-wagons  more  con 
spicuous  than  any  urban  vehicles,  as  they  jingled  by, 
with  men  and  women  on  their  sleigh-belled  donkeys, 
astride  or  atop  the  heavily  laden  panniers.  The  donkeys 
bore  a  part  literally  leading  in  all  the  rustic  equipages, 
and  with  their  superior  intellect  found  a  way  through 
the  crowds  for  the  string-teams  of  the  three  or  four 
large  mules  that  followed  them  in  harness.  Whenever 
we  saw  a  team  of  mules  without  this  sage  guidance 
we  trembled  for  their  safety;  as  for  horses,  no  team 
of  them  attempted  the  difficult  passage,  though  ox-trains 
seemed  able  to  dispense  with  the  path-finding  donkeys. 

To  be  sure,  the  horses  abounded  in  the  cabs,  which 
86 


PHASES    OF    MADRID 

were  mostly  bad,  more  or  less.  It  is  an  idiosyncrasy  of 
the  cabs  in  Madrid  that  only  the  open  victorias  have 
rubber  tires ;  if  you  go  in  a  coupe  you  must  consent  to  be 
ruthlessly  bounced  over  the  rough  pavements  on  wheels 
unsoftened.  It  "  follows  as  the  night  the  day  "  that 
the  coupe  is  not  in  favor,  and  that  in  its  conservative 
disuse  it  accumulates  a  smell  not  to  be  acquired  out 
of  Spain.  One  such  vehicle  I  had  which  I  thought 
must  have  been  stabled  in  the  house  of  Cervantes  at 
Valladolid,  and  rushed  on  the  Sud-Express  for  my 
service  at  Madrid;  the  stench  in  it  was  such  that  after 
a  short  drive  to  the  house  of  a  friend  I  was  fain  to 
dismiss  it  at  a  serious  loss  in  pesetas  and  take  the  risk 
of  another  which  might  have  been  as  bad.  Fortunately 
a  kind  lady  intervened  with  a  private  carriage  and  a 
coachman  shaved  that  very  day,  whereas  my  poor. old 
cabman,  who  was  of  one  and  the  same  smell  as  his  cab, 
had  not  been  shaved  for  three  days. 


in 


This  seems  the  place  to  note  the  fact  that  no  Span 
iard  in  humble  life  shaves  oftener  than  once  in  three 
days,  and  that  you  always  see  him  on  the  third  day 
just  before  he  has  shaved.  But  all  this  time  I  have 
left  myself  sitting  in  the  cafe  looking  out  on  the  club 
that  looks  out  on  the  Calle  de  Alcala,  and  keeping  the 
waiter  waiting  with  a  jug  of  hot  milk  in  his  hand 
while  I  convince  him  (such  a  friendly,  smiling  man 
he  is,  and  glad  of  my  instruction!)  that  in  tea  one  al 
ways  wants  the  milk  cold.  To  him  that  does  not  seem 
reasonable,  since  one  wants  it  hot  in  coffee  and  choco 
late;  but  he  yields  to  my  prejudice,  and  after  that  he 

always  says,  ff  AJi,  leche  fria!"  and  we  smile  radiantly 

87 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TEAVELS 

together  in  the  bond  of  comradery  which  cold  milk  es 
tablishes  between  man  and  man  in  Spain.  As  yet  tea 
is  a  novelty  in  that  country,  though  the  young  English 
queen,  universally  loved  and  honored,  has  made  it  the 
fashion  in  high  life.  Still  it  is  hard  to  overcome 
such  a  prepossession  as  that  of  hot  milk  in  tea, 
and  in  some  places  you  cannot  get  it  cold  for  love  or 
money. 

But  again  I  leave  myself  waiting  in  that  cafe,  where 
slowly,  and  at  last  not  very  overwhelmingly  in  num 
ber,  the  beautiful  plaster-pale  Spanish  ladies  gather 
with  their  husbands  and  have  chocolate.  It  is  a  riot 
ous  dissipation  for  them,  though  it  does  not  sound  so; 
the  home  is  the  Spanish  ideal  of  the  woman's  place, 
as  it  is  of  our  anti-suffragists,  though  there  is  nothing 
corresponding  to  our  fireside  in  it ;  and  the  cafe  is  her 
husband's  place  without  her.  When  she  walks  in  the 
street,  where  mostly  she  drives,  she  walks  with  her  eyes 
straight  before  her;  to  look  either  to  the  right  or  left, 
especially  if  a  man  is  on  either  hand,  is  a  superfluity 
of  naughtiness.  The  habit  of  looking  straight  ahead 
is  formed  in  youth,  and  it  continues  through  life;  so 
at  least  it  is  said,  and  if  I  cannot  affirm  it  I  will  not 
deny  it.  The  beautiful  black  eyes  so  discreetly  directed 
looked  as  often  from  mantillas  as  hats,  even  in  Madrid, 
which  is  the  capital,  and  much  infested  by  French 
fashions.  You  must  not  believe  it  when  any  one  tells 
you  that  the  mantilla  is  going  out;  it  prevails  every 
where,  and  it  increases  from  north  to  south,  and  in 
Seville  it  is  almost  universal.  Hats  are  worn  there  only 
in  driving,  but  at  Madrid  there  were  many  hats  worn 
in  walking,  though  whether  by  Spanish  women  or  by 
foreigners,  of  course  one  could  not,  though  a  wayfaring 
man  and  an  American,  stop  them  to  ask. 

There  are  more  women  in  the  street  at  Madrid  than 
88 


PHASES    OF    MADRID 

in  the  provincial  cities,  perhaps  because  it  is  the  capital 
and  cosmopolitan,  and  perhaps  because  the  streets  are 
many  of  them  open  and  pleasant,  though  there  are 
enough  of  them  dark  and  narrow,  too.  I  do  not  know 
just  why  the  Puerta  del  Sol  seems  so  much  ampler  and 
gayer  than  the  Calle  de  Alcala;  it  is  not  really  wider, 
but  it  seems  more  to  concentrate  the  coming  and  going, 
and  with  its  high-hoteled  opposition  of  corners  is  of  a 
supreme  spectacularity.  Besides,  the  name  is  so  fine : 
what  better  could  any  city  place  ask  than  to  be  called 
Gate  of  the  Sun  ?  Perpetual  trams  wheeze  and  whistle 
through  it ;  large  shops  face  upon  it ;  the  sidewalks  are 
thronged  with  passers,  and  the  many  little  streets  de 
bouching  on  it  pour  their  streams  of  traffic  and  travel 
into  it  on  the  right  and  left.  It  is  mainly  fed  by  the 
avenues  leaving  the  royal  palace  on  the  west,  and  its 
eddying  tide  empties  through  the  Calle  de  Alcala 
into  the  groves  and  gardens  of  the  Prado  whence  it 
spreads  over  all  the  drives  and  parks  east  and  north 
and  south. 

For  a  capital  purposed  and  planned  Madrid  is  very 
well  indeed.  It  has  not  the  symmetry  which  fore 
thought  gave  the  topography  of  Washington,  or  the 
beauty  which  afterthought  has  given  Paris.  But  it 
makes  you  think  a  little  of  Washington,  and  a  great 
deal  of  Paris,  though  a  great  deal  more  yet  of  Rome. 
It  is  Renaissance  so  far  as  architecture  goes,  and  it  is 
very  modern  Latin;  so  that  it  is  of  the  older  and  the 
newer  Rome  that  it  makes  you  think.  From  time  to 
time  it  seemed  to  me  I  must  be  in  Rome,  and  I  re 
covered  myself  with  a  pang  to  find  I  was  not.  Yet,  as 
I  say,  Madrid  was  very  well  indeed,  and  when  I  re 
flected  I  had  to  own  that  I  had  come  there  on  purpose 
to  be  there,  and  not  to  be  in  Rome,  where  also  I  should 

have  been  so  satisfied  to  be. 

89 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAYELS 


IV 


I  do  not  know  but  we  chose  our  hotel  when  we  left 
the  Ritz  because  it  was  so  Italian,  so  Roman.  It  had 
a  wide  grape  arbor  before  it,  with  a  generous  spread 
of  trellised  roof  through  which  dangled  the  grape 
bunches  among  the  leaves  of  the  vine.  Around  this 
arbor  at  top  went  a  balustrade  of  marble,  with  fat 
puiii,  or  marble  boys,  on  the  corners,  who  would  have 
watched  over  the  fruit  if  they  had  not  been  preoccupied 
with  looking  like  so  many  thousands  of  putti  in  Italy. 
They  looked  like  Italian  putti  with  a  difference,  the 
difference  that  passes  between  all  the  Spanish  things 
and  the  Italian  things  they  resemble.  They  were 
coarser  and  grosser  in  figure,  and  though  amiable 
enough  in  aspect,  they  lacked  the  refinement,  the  air 
of  pretty  appeal  which  Italian  art  learns  from  nature 
to  give  the  faces  of  putti.  Yet  they  were  charming, 
and  it  was  always  a  pleasure  to  look  at  them  posing 
in  pairs  at  the  corners  of  the  balustrade,  and  I  do  not 
know  but  dozing  in  the  hours  of  siesta.  If  they  had 
been  in  wood  Spanish  art  would  have  known  how  to 
make  them  better,  but  in  stone  they  had  been  gather 
ing  an  acceptable  weather  stain  during  the  human  gen 
erations  they  had  been  there,  and  their  plump  stomachs 
were  weather-beaten  white. 

I  do  not  know  if  they  had  been  there  long  enough  to 
have  witnessed  the  murder  of  Cromwell's  ambassador 
done  in  our  street  by  two  Jacobite  gentlemen  who  could 
not  abide  his  coming  to  honor  in  the  land  where  they 
were  in  exile  from  England.  That  must  have  been 
sometime  about  the  middle  of  the  century  after  Philip 
II.,  bigot  as  he  was,  could  not  bear  the  more  masterful 
bigotry  of  the  archbishop  of  Toledo,  and  brought  his 

90 


PHASES    OF    MADRID 

court  from  that  ancient  capital,  and  declared  Madrid 
henceforward  the  capital  forever;  which  did  not  pre 
vent  Philip  III.  from  taking  his  court  to  Valladolid 
and  making  that  the  capital  en  litre,  when  he  liked. 
However,  some  other  Philip  or  Charles,  or  whoever,  re 
turned  with  his  court  to  Madrid  and  it  has  ever  since 
remained  the  capital,  and  has  come,  with  many  natural 
disadvantages,  to  look  its  supremacy.  For  my  pleasure 
I  would  rather  live  in  Seville,  but  that  would  be  a 
luxurious  indulgence  of  the  love  of  beauty,  and  like  a 
preference  of  Venice  in  Italy  when  there  was  Eome 
to  live  in.  Madrid  is  not  Rome,  but  it  makes  you 
think  of  Rome  as  I  have  said,  and  if  it  had  a  better 
climate  it  would  make  yon  think  of  Rome  still  more. 
Notoriously,  however,  it  has  not  a  good  climate  and 
we  had  not  come  at  the  right  season  to  get  the  best  of 
the  bad.  The  bad  season  itself  was  perverse,  for  the 
rains  do  not  usually  begin  in  their  bitterness  at  Madrid 
before  November,  and  now  they  began  early  in  October. 
The  day  would  open  fair,  with  only  a  few  little  white 
clouds  in  the  large  blue,  and  if  we  could  trust  other's 
experience  we  knew  it  would  rain  before  the  day  closed ; 
only  a  morning  absolutely  clear  could  warrant  the  hope 
of  a  day  fair  till  sunset.  Shortly  after  noon  the  little 
white  clouds  would  drift  together  and  be  joined  by 
others  till  they  hid  the  large  blue,  and  then  the  drops 
would  begin  to  fall.  By  that  time  the  air  would  have 
turned  raw  and  chill,  and  the  rain  would  be  of  a  cold 
which  it  kept  through  the  night. 

This  habit  of  raining  every  afternoon  was  what  kept 
us  from  seeing  rank,  riches,  and  beauty  in  the  Paseo  de 
la  Castellana,  where  they  drive  only  on  fine  afternoons; 
they  now  remained  at  home  even  more  persistently  than 
we  didA  for  with  that  love  of  the  fashionable  world 
for  which  I  am  always  blaming  myself  I  sometimes 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

took  a  cab  and  fared  desperately  forth  in  pursuit  of 
them.  Only  once  did  I  seem  to  catch  a  glimpse  of 
them,  and  that  once  I  saw  a  closed  carriage  weltering 
along  the  drive  between  the  trees  and  the  trams  that 
border  it,  with  the  coachman  and  footman  snugly 
sheltered  under  umbrellas  on  the  box.  This  was  some 
thing,  though  not  a  great  deal;  I  could  not  make  out 
the  people  inside  the  carriage;  yet  it  helped  to  certify 
to  me  the  fact  that  the  great  world  does  drive  in  the 
Paseo  de  la  Castellana  and  does  not  drive  in  the  Paseo 
del  Prado ;  that  is  quite  abandoned,  even  on  the  wettest 
days,  to  the  very  poor  and  perhaps  unfashionable  people. 


It  may  have  been  our  comparative  defeat  with  fash 
ion  in  its  most  distinctive  moments  of  pleasuring  (for 
one  thing  I  wished  to  see  how  the  dreariness  of  Madrid 
gaiety  in  the  Paseo  de  la  Castellana  would  compare 
with  that  of  Roman  gaiety  on  the  Pincian)  which  made 
us  the  more  determined  to  see  a  bull-fight  in  the  Span 
ish  capital.  We  had  vowed  ourselves  in  coming  to 
Spain  to  set  the  Spaniards  an  example  of  civilization 
by  inflexibly  refusing  to  see  a  bull-fight  under  any 
circumstances  or  for  any  consideration;  but  it  seemed 
to  us  that  it  was  a  sort  of  public  duty  to  go  and  see 
the  crowd,  what  it  was  like,  in  the  time  and  place  where 
the  Spanish  crowd  is  most  like  itself.  We  would  go 
and  remain  in  our  places  till  everybody  else  was  placed, 
and  then,  when  the  picadors  and  banderilleros  and 
matadors  were  all  ranged  in  the  arena,  and  the  gate 
was  lifted,  and  the  bull  came  rushing  madly  in,  we 
would  rise  before  he  had  time  to  gore  anybody,  and  go 

inexorably  away.     This  union  of  self-indulgence  and 

92 


PHASES    OF    MADRID 

self-denial  seemed  almost  an  act  of  piety  when  we 
learned  that  the  bull-fight  was  to  be  on  Sunday,  and 
we  prepared  ourselves  with  tickets  quite  early  in  the 
week.  On  Saturday  afternoon  it  rained,  of  course,  but 
the  worst  was  that  it  rained  on  Sunday  morning,  and 
the  clouds  did  not  lift  till  noon.  Then  the  glowing 
concierge  of  our  hotel,  a  man  so  gaily  hopeful,  so  ex 
pansively  promising  that  I  could  hardly  believe  he  was 
not  an  Italian,  said  that  there  could  not  possibly  be  a 
bull-fight  that  day ;  the  rain  would  have  made  the  arena 
so  slippery  that  man,  horse,  and  bull  would  all  fall 
down  together  in  a  common  ruin,  with  no  hope  whatever 
of  hurting  one  another. 

We  gave  up  this  bull-fight  at  once,  but  we  were  the 
more  resolved  to  see  a  bull-fight  because  we  still  owed 
it  to  the  Spanish  people  to  come  away  before  we  had 
time  to  look  at  it,  and  we  said  we  would  certainly  go 
at  Cordova  where  we  should  spend  the  next  Sabbath. 
At  Cordova  we  learned  that  it  was  the  closed  season 
for  bull-fighting,  but  vague  hopes  of  usefulness  to  the 
Spanish  public  were  held  out  to  us  at  Seville,  the  very 
metropolis  of  bull-fighting,  where  the  bulls  came  bellow 
ing  up  from  their  native  fields  athirst  for  the  blood  of 
the  profession  and  the  aficionados,  who  outnumber  there 
the  amateurs  of  the  whole  rest  of  Spain.  But  at  Seville 
we  were  told  that  there  would  be  no  more  bull-feasts, 
as  the  Spaniards  much  more  preferably  call  the  bull 
fights,  till  April,  and  now  we  were  only  in  October. 
We  said,  Never  mind;  we  would  go  to  a  bull-feast  in 
Granada;  but  at  Granada  the  season  was  even  more 
hopelessly  closed.  In  Honda  itself,  which  is  the  heart, 
as  Seville  is  the  home  of  the  bull-feast,  we  could  only 
see  the  inside  of  the  empty  arena ;  and  at  Algeciras  the 
outside  alone  offered  itself  to  our  vision.  By  this  time 

the  sense  of  duty  was  so  strong  upon  us  that  if  there 

93 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

had  been  a  bull-feast  we  would  have  shared  in  it  and 
stayed  through  till  the  last  espada  dropped  dead,  gored 
through,  at  the  knees  of  the  last  bull  transfixed  by  his 
unerring  sword ;  and  the  other  toreros,,  the  banderil- 
leros  with  their  darts  and  the  picadors  with  their  dis 
emboweled  horses,  lay  scattered  over  the  blood-stained 
arena.  Such  is  the  force  of  a  high  resolve  in  strangers 
bent  upon  a  lesson  of  civilization  to  a  barbarous  people 
when  disappointed  of  their  purpose.  But  we  learned 
too  late  that  only  in  Madrid  is  there  any  bull-feasting 
in  the  winter.  In  the  provincial  cities  the  bulls  are 
dispirited  by  the  cold ;  but  in  the  capital,  for  the  honor 
of  the  nation,  they  somehow  pull  themselves  together 
and  do  their  poor  best  to  kill  and  be  killed.  Yet  in  the 
capital  where  the  zeal  of  the  bulls,  and  I  suppose,  of 
the  bull-fighters,  is  such,  it  is  said  that  there  is  a  subtle 
decay  in  the  fashionable,  if  not  popular,  esteem  of  the 
only  sport  which  remembers  in  the  modern  world  the 
gladiatorial  shows  of  imperial  Rome.  It  is  said,  but 
I  do  not  know  whether  it  is  true,  that  the  young  Eng 
lish  queen  who  has  gladly  renounced  her  nation  and 
religion  for  the  people  who  seem  so  to  love  her,  cannot 
endure  the  bloody  sights  of  the  bull-feast ;  and  when  it 
comes  to  the  horses  dragging  their  entrails  across  the 
ring,  or  the  espada  despatching  the  bull,  or  the  bull  toss 
ing  a  banderillero  in  the  air  she  puts  up  her  fan.  It 
is  said  also  that  the  young  Spanish  king,  who  has  shown 
himself  such  a  merciful-minded  youth,  and  seems  so 
eager  to  make  the  best  of  the  bad  business  of  being  a 
king  at  all,  sympathizes  with  her,  and  shows  an  obvious 
ly  abated  interest  at  these  supreme  moments. 

I  do  not  know  whether  or  not  it  was  because  we  Had 
failed  with  the  bull-feast  that  we  failed  to  go  to  any 
sort  of  public  entertainment  in  Madrid.  It  certainly 

was  in  my  book  to  go  to  the  theater,  and  see  some  of 

94 


PHASES    OF    MADRID 

those  modern  plays  which  I  had  read  so  many  of,  and 
which  I  had  translated  one  of  for  Lawrence  Barrett 
in  the  far-off  days  before  the  flood  of  native  American 
dramas  now  deluging  our  theater.  That  play  was  "  Un 
Drama  Nueva,"  by  Estebanez,  which  between  us  we 
called  "  Yorick's  Love  "  and  which  my  very  knightly 
tragedian  made  his  battle-horse  during  the  latter  years 
of  his  life.  In  another  version  Barrett  had  seen  it 
fail  in  New  York,  but  its  failure  left  him  with  the 
lasting  desire  to  do  it  himself.  A  Spanish  friend,  now 
dead  but  then  the  gifted  and  eccentric  Consul  General 
at  Quebec,  got  me  a  copy  of  the  play  from  Madrid, 
and  I  thought  there  was  great  reason  in  a  suggestion 
from  another  friend  that  it  had  failed  because  it  put 
Shakespeare  on  the  stage  as  one  of  its  characters;  but 
it  seemed  to  me  that  the  trouble  could  be  got  over  by 
making  the  poet  Heywood  represent  the  Shakespearian 
epoch.  I  did  this  and  the  sole  obstacle  to  its  success 
seemed  removed.  It  wrent,  as  the  enthusiastic  Barrett 
used  to  say,  "  with  a  shout,"  though  to  please  him  I 
had  hurt  it  all  I  could  by  some  additions  and  adapta 
tions;  and  though  it  was  a  most  ridiculously  romantic 
story  of  the  tragical  loves  of  Yorick  (whom  the  Latins 
like  to  go  on  imagining  out  of  Hamlet  a  much  more 
interesting  and  important  character  than  Shakespeare 
ever  meant  him  to  be  fancied),  and  ought  to  have  re 
mained  the  fiasco  it  began,  still  it  gained  Barrett  much 
money  and  me  some  little. 

I  was  always  proud  of  this  success,  and  I  boasted 
of  it  to  the  bookseller  in  Madrid,  whom  I  interested  in 
finding  me  some  still  moderner  plays  after  quite  failing 
to  interest  another  bookseller.  Your  Spanish  merchant 
seems  seldom  concerned  in  a  mercantile  transaction; 
but  perhaps  it  was  not  so  strange  in  the  case  of  this 
Spanish  bookseller  because  he  was  a  German  and  spoke 

95 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

a  surprising  English  in  response  to  my  demand  whether 
he  spoke  any.  He  was  the  frowsiest  bookseller  I  ever 
saw,  and  he  was  in  the  third  day  of  his  unshavenness 
with  a  shirt-front  and  coat-collar  plentifully  bedan- 
druffed  from  his  shaggy  hair;  but  he  entered  into  the 
spirit  of  my  affair  and  said  if  that  Spanish  play  had 
succeeded  so  wonderfully,  then  I  ought  to  pay  fifty 
per  cent,  more  than  the  current  price  for  the  other 
Spanish  plays  which  I  wanted  him  to  get  me.  I  laughed 
with  him  at  the  joke  which  I  found  simple  earnest 
when  our  glowing  concierge  gave  me  the  books  next 
day,  and  I  perceived  that  the  proposed  supplement  had 
really  been  paid  for  them  on  my  account.  I  should 
not  now  be  grieving  for  this  incident  if  the  plays  had 
proved  better  reading  than  they  did  on  experiment. 
Some  of  them  were  from  the  Catalan,  and  all  of  them 
dealt  with  the  simpler  actual  life  of  Spain;  but  they 
did  not  deal  impressively  with  it,  though  they  seemed 
to  me  more  hopeful  in  conception  than  certain  psycho 
logical  plays  of  ten  or  fifteen  years  ago,  which  the 
Spanish  authors  had  too  clearly  studied  from  Ibsen. 

They  might  have  had  their  effect  in  the  theater,  but 
the  rainy  weather  had  not  only  spoiled  my  sole  chance 
of  the  bull-feast ;  the  effect  of  it  in  a  stubborn  cold  for 
bade  me  the  night  air  and  kept  me  from  testing  any  of 
the  new  dramas  on  the  stage,  which  is  always  giving 
new  dramas  in  Madrid.  The  stage,  or  rather  the  the 
ater,  is  said  to  be  truly  a  passion  with  the  Madrilenos, 
who  go  every  night  to  see  the  whole  or  the  part  of  a 
play  and  do  not  mind  seeing  the  same  play  constantly, 
as  if  it  were  opera.  They  may  not  care  to  see  the  play 
so  much  as  to  be  seen  at  it ;  that  happens  in  every  coun 
try;  but  no  doubt  the  plays  have  a  charm  which  did 
not  impart  itself  from  the  printed  page.  The  companies 

are  reported  very  good;  but  the  reader  must  take  this 

96 


PHASES    OF    MADRID 

from  me  at  second  hand,  as  he  must  take  the  general 
society  fact.  I  only  know  that  people  ask  you  to  dinner 
at  nine,  and  if  they  go  to  the  theater  afterward  they 
cannot  well  come  away  till  toward  one  o'clock.  It  is 
after  this  hour  that  the  tertulia^  that  peculiarly  Span 
ish  function,  begins,  but  how  long  it  lasts  or  just  what 
it  is  I  do  not  know.  I  am  able  to  report  confidently, 
however,  that  it  is  a  species  of  salon  and  that  it  is  said 
to  be  called  a  terhdia  because  of  the  former  habit  in 
the  guests,  and  no  doubt  the  hostess,  of  quoting  the 
poet  Tertullian.  It  is  of  various  constituents,  accord 
ing  as  it  is  a  fashionable,  a  literary,  or  an  artistic 
tertulia,  or  all  three  with  an  infusion  of  science.  Often- 
est,  I  believe,  it  is  a  domestic  affair  and  all  degrees 
of  cousinship  resort  to  it  with  brothers  and  sisters  and 
uncles,  who  meet  with  the  pleasant  Latin  liking  of 
frequent  meetings  among  kindred.  In  some  cases  no 
doubt  it  is  a  brilliant  reunion  where  lively  things  are 
said;  in  others  it  may  be  dull;  in  far  the  most  cases 
it  seems  to  be  held  late  at  night  or  early  in  the  morning. 


VI 


It  was  hard,  after  being  shut  up  several  days,  that 
one  must  not  go  out  after  nightfall,  and  if  one  went  out 
by  day,  one  must  go  with  closed  lips  and  avoid  all  talk 
ing  in  the  street  under  penalty  of  incurring  the  dreaded 
pneumonia  of  Madrid.  Except  for  that  dreaded  pneu 
monia,  I  believe  the  air  of  Madrid  is  not  so  pestilential 
as  it  has  been  reported.  Public  opinion  is  beginning 
to  veer  in  favor  of  it,  just  as  the  criticism  which  has 
pronounced  Madrid  commonplace  and  unpicturesque 
because  it  is  not  obviously  old,  is  now  finding  a  charm 

in  it  peculiar  to  the  place.     Its  very  modernity  em- 

97 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

bodies  and  imparts  the  charm,  which  will  grow  as  the 
city  grows  in  wideness  and  straightness.  It  is  in  the 
newer  quarter  that  it  recalls  Kome  or  the  newer  quar 
ters  of  Kome ;  but  there  is  an  old  part  of  it  that  recalls 
the  older  part  of  Naples,  though  the  streets  are  not 
quite  so  narrow  nor  the  houses  so  high.  There  is  like 
bargaining  at  the  open  stands  with  the  buyers  and 
sellers  chaffering  over  them ;  there  is  a  likeness  in  the 
people's  looks,  too,  but  when  it  comes  to  the  most  char 
acteristic  thing  of  Naples,  Madrid  is  not  in  it  for  a 
moment.  I  mean  the  bursts  of  song  which  all  day  long 
and  all  night  long  you  hear  in  Naples ;  and  this  seems 
as  good  a  place  as  any  to  say  that  to  my  experience 
Spain  is  a  songless  land.  We  had  read  much  of  the 
song  and  dance  there,  but  though  the  dance  might  be 
hired  the  song  was  never  offered  for  love  or  money. 
To  be  sure,  in  Toledo,  once,  a  woman  came  to  her  door 
across  the  way  under  our  hotel  window  and  sang  over 
the  slops  she  emptied  into  the  street,  but  then  she  shut 
the  door  and  we  heard  her  no  more.  In  Cordova  there 
was  as  brief  a  peal  of  music  from  a  house  which  we 
passed,  and  in  Algeciras  we  heard  one  short  sweet 
strain  from  a  girl  whom  we  could  not  see  behind  her 
lattice.  Besides  these  chance  notes  we  heard  no  other 
by  any  chance.  But  this  is  by  no  means  saying  that 
there  is  not  abundant  song  in  Spain,  only  it  was  kept 
quiet ;  I  suppose  that  if  we  had  been  there  in  the  spring 
instead  of  the  fall  we  should  at  least  have  heard  the 
birds  singing.  In  Madrid  there  were  not  even  many 
street  cries;  a  few  in  the  Puerta  del  Sol,  yes;  but  the 
peasants  who  drove  their  mule-teams  through  the  streets 
scarcely  lifted  their  voices  in  reproach  or  invitation; 
they  could  trust  the  wise  donkeys  that  led  them  to  get 
them  safely  through  the  difficult  places.  There  was 
no  audible  quarreling  among  the  cabmen,  and  when 


PHASES    OF    MADRID 

you  called  a  cab  it  was  useless  to  cry  "  Heigh !"  or 
shake  your  umbrella ;  you  made  play  with  your  thumb 
and  finger  in  the  air  and  sibilantly  whispered ;  other 
wise  the  cabman  ignored  you  and  went  on  reading  his 
newspaper.  The  cabmen  of  Madrid  are  great  readers, 
much  greater,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  than  I  was,  for  when 
ever  I  bought  a  Spanish  paper  I  found  it  extremely 
well  written.  'Now  and  then  I  expressed  my  political 
preferences  in  buying  El  Liberal  which  I  thought  very 
able;  even  El  Imparcial  I  thought  able,  though  it  is 
less  radical  than  El  Liberal,  a  paper  which  is  published 
simultaneously  in  Madrid,  with  local  editions  in  several 
provincial  cities. 

For  all  the  street  silence  there  seemed  to  be  a  great 
deal  of  noise,  which  I  suppose  came  from  the  click  of 
boots  on  the  sidewalks  and  of  hoofs  in  roadways  and 
the  grind  and  squeal  of  the  trams,  with  the  harsh  smit 
ing  of  the  unrubbered  tires  of  the  closed  cabs  on  the 
rough  granite  blocks  of  the  streets.  But  there  are 
asphalted  streets  in  Madrid  where  the  sound  of  the 
hoofs  and  wheels  is  subdued,  and  the  streets  rough  and 
smooth  are  kept  of  a  cleanliness  which  would  put  the 
streets  of  New  York  to  shame  if  anything  could.  Ordi 
narily  you  could  get  cabs  anywhere,  but  if  you  wanted 
one  very  badly,  when  remote  from  a  stand,  there  was 
more  than  one  chance  that  a  cab  marked  Libre  would 
pass  you  with  lordly  indifference.  As  for  motor  taxi- 
cabs  there  are  none  in  the  city,  and  at  Cook's  they 
would  not  take  the  responsibility  of  recommending  any 
automobiles  for  country  excursions. 


VTT 

I  linger  over  these  sordid  details  because  I  must 
needs  shrink  before  the  mention  of  that  incomparable 

99 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

gallery,  the  Museo  del  Prado.  I  am  careful  not  to  call 
it  the  greatest  gallery  in  the  world,  for  I  think  of  what 
the  Louvre,  the  Pitti,  and  the  National  Gallery  are, 
and  what  our  own  Metropolitan  is  going  to  be;  but 
surely  the  Museo  del  Prado  is  incomparable  for  its 
peculiar  riches.  It  is  part  of  the  autobiographical  asso 
ciations  with  my  Spanish  travel  that  when  John  Hay, 
who  was  not  yet,  by  thirty  or  forty  years,  the  great 
statesman  he  became,  but  only  the  breeziest  of  young 
Secretaries  of  Legation,  just  two  weeks  from  his  post  in 
Madrid,  blew  surprisingly  into  my  little  carpenter's 
box  in  Cambridge  one  day,  he  boasted  almost  the 
first  thing  that  the  best  Titians  in  the  world  were  in 
the  Prado  galleries.  I  was  too  lately  from  Venice  in 
1867  not  to  have  my  inward  question  whether  there 
could  be  anywhere  a  better  Titian  than  the  "  Assump 
tion,"  but  I  loved  Hay  too  much  to  deny  him  openly. 
I  said  that  I  had  no  doubt  of  it,  and  when  the  other 
day  I  went  to  the  Prado  it  was  with  the  wish  of  finding 
him  perfectly  right,  triumphantly  right.  I  had  been 
from  the  first  a  strong  partisan  of  Titian,  and  in  many 
a  heated  argument  with  Ruskin,  unaware  of  our  con 
troversy,  I  had  it  out  with  that  most  prejudiced  par 
tisan  of  Tintoretto.  I  always  got  the  better  of  him, 
as  one  does  in  such  dramatizations,  where  one  frames 
one's  opponent's  feeble  replies  for  him ;  but  now  in  the 
Prado,  sadly  and  strangely  enough,  I  began  to  wonder 
if  Ruskin  might  not  have  tacitly  had  the  better  of  me 
all  the  time.  If  Hay  was  right  in  holding  that  the  best 
Titians  in  the  world  were  in  the  Prado,  then  I  was 
wrong  in  having  argued  for  Titian  against  Tintoretto 
with  Ruskin.  I  could  only  wish  that  I  had  the  "  As 
sumption  "  there,  or  some  of  those  senators  whose  por 
traits  I  remembered  in  the  Academy  at  Venice.  The 

truth  is  that  to  my  eye  he  seemed  to  weaken  before 

100 


PHASES    OF    MADRID 

the  Spanish  masters,  though  I  say  this,  who  must  con 
fess  that  I  failed  to  see  the  room  of  his  great  portraits. 
The  Italians  who  hold  their  own  with  the  Spaniards 
are  Tintoretto  and  Veronese;  even  Murillo  was  more 
than  a  match  for  Titian  in  such  pictures  of  his  as  I 
saw  (I  must  own  that  I  did  not  see  the  best,  or  nearly 
all),  though  properly  speaking  Murillo  is  to  be  known 
at  his  greatest  only  in  Seville. 

But  Velasquez,  but  Velasquez!  In  the  Prado  there 
is  110  one  else  present  when  he  is  by,  with  his  Philips 
and  Charleses,  and  their  "  villainous  hanging  of  the 
nether  lip,"  with  his  hideous  court  dwarfs  and  his 
pretty  princes  and  princesses,  his  grandees  and  jesters, 
his  allegories  and  battles,  his  pastorals  and  chases, 
which  fitly  have  a  vast  salon  to  themselves,  not  only 
that  the  spectator  may  realize  at  once  the  rich  variety 
and  abundance  of  the  master,  but  that  such  lesser  lights 
as  Rubens,  Titian,  Correggio,  Giorgione,  Tintoretto, 
Veronese,  Rembrandt,  Zurbaran,  El  Greco,  Murillo, 
may  not  be  needlessly  dimmed  by  his  surpassing  splen 
dor.  I  leave  to  those  who  know  painting  from  the 
painter's  art  to  appreciate  the  technical  perfection  of 
Velasquez ;  I  take  my  stand  outside  of  that,  and  acclaim 
its  supremacy  in  virtue  of  that  reality  which  all  Span 
ish  art  has  seemed  always  to  strive  for  and  which  in 
Velasquez  it  incomparably  attains.  This  is  the  literary 
quality  which  the  most  untechnical  may  feel,  and  which 
is  not  clearer  to  the  connoisseur  than  to  the  least  un 
learned. 

After  Velasquez  in  the  Prado  we  wanted  Goya,  and 
more  and  more  Goya,  who  is  as  Spanish  and  as  unlike 
Velasquez  as  can  very  well  be.  There  was  not  enough 
Goya  abovestairs  to  satisfy  us,  but  in  the  Goya  room 
in  the  basement  there  was  a  series  of  scenes  from  Span 
ish  life,  mostly  frolic  campestral  things,  which  he  did 

101 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

as  patterns  for  tapestries  and  which  came  near  being 
enough  in  their  way:  the  way  of  that  reality  which  is 
so  far  from  the  reality  of  Velasquez.  There,  striving 
with  their  strangeness,  we  found  a  young  American 
hushand  and  wife  who  said  they  were  going  to  Egypt, 
and  seemed  so  anxious  to  get  out  of  Spain  that  they 
all  but  asked  us  which  turning  to  take.  They  had  a 
Baedeker  of  1901.  which  they  had  been  deceived  in  at 
New  York  as  the  latest  edition,  and  they  were  appar 
ently  making  nothing  of  the  Goyas  and  were  as  if  lost 
down  there  in  the  basement.  They  were  in  doubt  about 
going  further  in  a  country  which  had  inveigled  them 
from  Gibraltar  as  far  as  its  capital.  They  advised 
with  us  about  Burgos,  of  all  places,  and  when  we  said 
the  hotels  in  Burgos  were  very  cold,  they  answered, 
Well  they  had  thought  so;  and  the  husband  asked, 
Spain  was  a  pretty  good  place  to  cut  out,  wasn't  it? 
The  wife  expected  that  they  would  find  some  one  in 
Egypt  who  spoke  English ;  she  had  expected  they  would 
speak  French  in  Spain,  but  had  been  disappointed. 
They  had  left  their  warm  things  at  Gibraltar  and  were 
almost  frozen  already.  They  were  as  good  and  sweet 
and  nice  as  they  could  be,  and  we  were  truly  sorry  to 
part  with  them  and  leave  them  to  what  seemed  to  be  a 
mistake  which  they  were  not  to  blame  for. 

I  wish  that  all  Europeans  and  all  Europeanized 
Americans  knew  how  to  value  such  incorruptible  con- 
nationals,  who  would,  I  was  sure,  carry  into  the  deepest 
dark  of  Egypt  and  over  the  whole  earth  undimmed  the 
light  of  our  American  single-heartedness.  I  would 
have  given  something  to  know  from  just  which  kind 
country  town  and  companionable  commonwealth  of  our 
Union  they  had  come,  but  I  would  not  have  given  much, 
for  I  knew  that  they  could  have  come  from  almost 

any.     In  their  modest  satisfaction  with  our  own  order 

102 


PHASES    OF    MADKID 

of  things,  our  language,  our  climate,  our  weather,  they 
would  not  rashly  condemn  those  of  other  lands,  but 
would  give  them  a  fair  chance;  and,  if  when  they  got 
home  again,  they  would  have  to  report  unfavorably  of 
the  Old  World  to  the  Board  of  Trade  or  the  Woman's 
Club,  it  would  not  be  without  intelligent  reservations, 
even  generous  reservations.  They  would  know  much 
more  than  they  knew  before  they  came  abroad,  and  if 
they  had  not  seen  Europe  distinctly,  but  in  a  glass 
darkly,  still  they  would  have  seen  it  and  would  be  the 
wiser  and  none  the  worse  for  it.  They  would  still  be 
of  their  shrewd,  pure  American  ideals,  and  would  judge 
their  recollections  as  they  judged  their  experiences  by 
them ;  and  I  wish  we  were  all  as  confirmed  in  our  fealty 
to  those  ideals. 

They  were  not,  clearly  enough,  of  that  yet  older 
fashion  of  Americans  who  used  to  go  through  European 
galleries  buying  copies  of  the  masterpieces  which  the 
local  painters  were  everywhere  making.  With  this  pair 
the  various  postal-card  reproductions  must  have  long 
superseded  the  desire  or  the  knowledge  of  copies,  and 
I  doubt  if  many  Americans  of  any  sort  now  support 
that  honored  tradition.  Who,  then,  does  support  it? 
The  galleries  of  the  Prado  seem  as  full  of  copyists  as 
they  could  have  been  fifty  years  ago,  and  many  of 
them  were  making  very  good  copies.  I  wish  I  could 
say  they  were  working  as  diligently  as  copyists  used 
to  work,  but  copyists  are  now  subject  to  frequent  inter 
ruptions,  not  from  the  tourists  but  from  one  another. 
They  used  to  be  all  men,  mostly  grown  gray  in  their 
pursuit,  but  now  they  are  both  men  and  women,  and 
younger  and  the  women  are  sometimes  very  pretty.  In 
the  Prado  one  saw  several  pairs  of  such  youth  con 
versing  together,  forgetful  of  everything  around  them, 

and  on  terms  so  very  like  flirtatious  that  they  could 

103 


FAMILIAE    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

not  well  be  distinguished  from  them.  They  were  terms 
that  other  Spanish  girls  could  enjoy  only  with  a  wooden 
lattice  and  an  iron  grille  between  them  and  the  novios 
outside  their  windows ;  and  no  tourist  of  the  least  heart 
could  help  rejoicing  with  them.  In  the  case  of  one 
who  stood  with  her  little  figure  slanted  and  her  little 
head  tilted,  looking  up  into  the  charmed  eyes  of  a 
tall  rubio,  the  tourist  could  not  help  rejoicing  with 
the  young  man  too. 

The  day  after  our  day  in  the  Prado  we  found  our 
selves  in  the  Museum  of  Modern  Art  through  the  kind 
offices  of  our  mistaken  cabman  when  we  were  looking 
for  the  Archaeological  Museum.  But  we  were  not 
sorry,  for  some  of  the  new  or  newer  pictures  and  sculp 
tures  were  well  worth  seeing,  though  we  should  never 
have  tried  for  them.  The  force  of  the  masters  which 
the  ideals  of  the  past  held  in  restraint  here  raged  in 
unbridled  excess ;  but  if  I  like  that  force  so  much,  why 
do  I  say  excess  ?  The  new  or  newer  Spanish  art  likes  an 
immense  canvas,  say  as  large  as  the  side  of  a  barn,  and 
it  chooses  mostly  a  tragical  Spanish  history  in  which 
it  riots  with  a  young  sense  of  power  brave  to  see.  There 
were  a  dozen  of  those  mighty  dramas  which  I  would 
have  liked  to  bring  away  with  me  if  I  had  only  had  a 
town  hall  big  enough  to  put  them  into  after  I  got 
them  home.  There  were  sculptures  as  masterful  and 
as  mighty  as  the  pictures,  but  among  the  paintings 
there  was  one  that  seemed  to  subdue  all  the  infuriate 
actions  to  the  calm  of  its  awful  repose.  This  was 
G-isbert's  "  Execution  of  Torre jos  and  his  Companions," 
who  were  shot  at  Malaga  in  1830  for  a  rising  in  favor 
of  constitutional  government.  One  does  not,  if  one  is 
as  wise  as  I,  attempt  to  depict  pictures,  and  I  leave 
this  most  heroic,  most  pathetic,  most  heart-breaking, 

most  consoling  masterpiece  for  my  reader  to  go  and 

104 


PHASES    OF    MADKID 

see  for  himself;  it  is  almost  worth  going  as  far  as 
Madrid  to  see.  Never  in  any  picture  do  I  remember  the 
like  of  those  sad,  brave,  severe  faces  of  the  men  stand 
ing  up  there  to  be  shot,  where  already  their  friends  lay 
dead  at  their  feet.  A  tumbled  top-hat  in  the  foreground 
had  an  effect  awf uller  than  a  tumbled  head  would  have 
had. 


VIII 


Besides  this  and  those  other  histories  there  were 
energetic  portraits  and  vigorous  landscapes  in  the  Mod 
ern  Museum,  where  if  we  had  not  been  bent  so  on 
visiting  the  Archaeological  Museum,  we  would  willing 
ly  have  spent  the  whole  morning.  But  we  were  deter 
mined  to  see  the  Peruvian  and  Mexican  antiquities 
which  we  believed  must  be  treasured  up  in  it ;  and  that 
we  might  not  fail  of  finding  it,  I  gave  one  of  the  cus 
todians  a  special  peseta  to  take  us  out  on  the  balcony 
and  show  us  exactly  how  to  get  to  it.  He  was  so  precise 
and  so  full  in  his  directions  that  we  spent  the  next 
half-hour  in  wandering  fatuously  round  the  whole  re 
gion  before  we  stumbled,  almost  violently,  upon  it  im 
mediately  back  of  the  Modern  Museum.  Will  it  be 
credited  that  it  was  then  hardly  worth  seeing  for  the 
things  we  meant  to  see?  The  Peruvian  and  Mexican 
antiquities  were  so  disappointing  that  we  would  hardly 
look  at  the  Etruscan,  Greek,  and  Roman  things  which 
it  was  so  much  richer  in.  To  be  sure,  we  had  seen  and 
overseen  the  like  of  these  long  before  in  Italy ;  but  they 
were  admirably  arranged  in  this  museum,  so  that  with 
out  the  eager  help  of  the  custodians  (which  two  cents 
would  buy  at  any  turn)  we  could  have  found  pleasure 
in  them,  whereas  the  Aztec  antiquities  were  mostly 

copies  in  plaster  and  the  Inca  jewelry  not  striking. 

105 


FAMILIAE    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

Before  finding  the  place  we  had  had  the  help  of  two 
policemen  and  one  newsboy  and  a  postman  in  losing 
ourselves  in  the  Prado  where  we  mostly  sought  for 
it,  and  with  difficulty  kept  ourselves  from  being  thrust 
into  the  gallery  there.  In  Spain  a  man,  or  even  a 
boy,  does  not  like  to  say  he  does  not  know  where  a 
place  is ;  he  is  either  too  proud  or  too  polite  to  do  it, 
and  he  will  misdirect  you  without  mercy.  But  the 
morning  was  bright,  and  almost  warm,  and  we  should 
have  looked  forward  to  weeks  of  sunny  weather  if  our 
experience  had  not  taught  us  that  it  would  rain  in  the 
afternoon,  and  if  greater  experience  than  ours  had  not 
instructed  us  that  there  would  be  many  days  of  thick 
fog  now  before  the  climate  of  Madrid  settled  itself  to 
the  usual  brightness  of  February.  We  had  time  to 
note  again  in  the  Paseo  Oastellana,  which  is  the  fash 
ionable  drive,  that  it  consists  of  four  rows  of  acacias 
and  tamarisks  and  a  stretch  of  lawn,  with  seats  be 
side  it ;  the  rest  is  bare  grasslessness,  with  a  bridle-path 
on  one  side  and  a  tram-line  on  the  other.  If  it  had 
been  late  afternoon  the  Paseo  would  have  been  filled 
with  the  gay  world,  but  being  the  late  forenoon  we 
had  to  leave  it  well-nigh  unpeopled  and  go  back  to  our 
hotel,  where  the  excellent  midday  breakfast  merited  the 
best  appetite  one  could  bring  to  it. 

In  fact,  all  the  meals  of  our  hotel  were  good,  and 
of  course  they  were  only  too  superabundant.  They 
were  pretty  much  what  they  were  everywhere  in  Spain, 
and  they  were  better  everywhere  than  they  were  in 
Granada  where  we  paid  most  for  them.  They  were 
appetizing,  and  not  of  the  cooking  which  the  popular 
superstition  attributes  to  Spain,  where  the  hotel  cook 
ing  is  not  rank  with  garlic  or  fiery  with  pepper,  as 
the  untraveled  believe.  At  luncheon  in  our  Madrid 

hotel  we  had  a  liberal  choice  of  eggs  in  any  form,  the 

106 


PHASES    OF    MADKID 

delicious  arroz  a  la  Valencia,  a  kind  of  risotto,  with 
saffron  to  savor  and  color  it;  veal  cutlets  or  beefsteak, 
salad,  cheese,  grapes,  pears,  and  peaches,  and  often 
melon;  the  ever-admirable  melon  of  Spain,  which  I 
had  learned  to  like  in  England.  At  dinner  there  were 
soup,  fish,  entree,  roast  beef,  lamb,  or  poultry,  vege 
tables,  salad,  sweet,  cheese,  and  fruit;  and  there  was 
pretty  poor  wine  ad  libitum  at  both  meals.  For  break 
fast  there  was  good  and  true  (or  true  enough)  coffee 
with  rich  milk,  which  if  we  sometimes  doubted  it  to 
be  goat's  milk  we  were  none  the  worse  if  none  the  wiser 
for,  as  at  dinner  we  were  not  either  if  we  unwittingly 
ate  kid  for  lamb. 

There  were  not  many  people  in  the  hotel,  but  the 
dining-room  was  filled  by  citizens  who  came  in  with 
the  air  of  frequenters.  They  were  not  people  of  fash 
ion,  as  we  readily  perceived,  but  kindly-looking  mer 
cantile  folk,  and  ladies  painted  as  white  as  newly  cal- 
cimined  house  walls;  and  all  gravely  polite.  There 
was  one  gentleman  as  large  round  as  a  hogshead,  with 
a  triple  arrangement  of  fat  at  the  back  of  his  neck 
which  was  fascinating.  He  always  bowed  when  we 
met  (necessarily  with  his  whole  back)  and  he  ate  with 
an  appetite  proportioned  to  his  girth.  I  could  wish 
still  to  know  who  and  what  he  was,  for  he  was  a  person 
very  much  to  my  mind.  So  was  the  head  waiter,  dark, 
silent,  clean-shaven,  who  let  me  use  my  deplorable 
Spanish  with  him,  till  in  the  last  days  he  came  out 
with  some  very  fair  English  which  he  had  been  courte 
ously  concealing  from  me.  He  looked  own  brother 
to  the  room-waiter  in  our  corridor,  whose  companion 
ship  I  could  desire  always  to  have.  One  could  not  be 
so  confident  of  the  sincerity  of  the  little  camarera  who 
slipped  out  of  the  room  with  a  soft,  sidelong  ff  De 
nada  "  at  one's  thanks  for  the  hot  water  in  the  morn- 
8  107 


EAMILIAK    SPANISH    TEAVELS 

ing;  but  one  could  stake  one's  life  on  the  goodness  of 
this  camarero.  He  was  not  so  tall  as  his  leanness  made 
him  look;  he  was  of  a  national  darkness  of  eyes  and 
hair  which  as  imparted  to  his  tertian  clean-shavenness 
was  a  deep  blue.  He  spoke,  with  a  certain  hesitation, 
a  beautiful  Castilian,  delicately  lisping  the  sibilants 
and  strongly  throating  the  gutturals ;  and  what  he  said 
you  could  believe.  He  never  was  out  of  the  way  when 
wanted;  he  darkled  with  your  boots  and  shoes  in  a 
little  closet  next  your  door,  and  came  from  it  with  the 
morning  coffee  and  rolls.  In  a  stress  of  frequentation 
he  appeared  in  evening  dress  in  the  dining-room  at 
night,  and  did  honor  to  the  place;  'but  otherwise  he 
was  to  be  seen  only  in  our  corridor,  or  in  the  cold,  dark 
chamber  at  the  stair  head  where  the  camareras  sat  sew 
ing,  kept  in  check  by  his  decorum.  Without  being 
explicitly  advised  of  the  fact,  I  am  sure  he  was  the 
best  of  Catholics,  and  that  he  would  have  burnt  me 
for  a  heretic  if  necessary;  but  he  would  have  done  it 
from  his  conscience  and  for  my  soul's  good  after  I  had 
recanted.  He  seldom  smiled,  but  when  he  did  you 
could  see  it  was  from  his  heart. 

His  contrast,  his  very  antithesis,  the  joyous  con 
cierge,  was  always  smiling,  and  was  every  way  more 
like  an  Italian  than  a  Spaniard.  He  followed  us  into 
the  wettest  Madrid  weather  with  the  sunny  rays  of  his 
temperament,  and  welcomed  our  returning  cab  with 
an  effulgence  that  performed  the  effect  of  an  umbrella 
in  the  longish  walk  from  the  curbstone  to  the  hotel 
door,  past  the  grape  arbor  whose  fruit  ripened  for  us 
only  in  a  single  bunch,  though  he  had  so  confidently 
prophesied  our  daily  pleasure  in  it.  He  seemed  at  first 
to  be  the  landlord,  and  without  reference  to  higher 
authority  he  gave  us  beautiful  rooms  overlooking  the 
bacchanal  vine  which  would  have  been  filled  with  sun- 

108 


PHASES    OF    MADRID 

shine  if  the  weather  had  permitted.  When  he  lapsed 
into  the  concierge,  he  got  us,  for  five  pesetas,  so  deep 
and  wide  a  wood-box,  covered  with  crimson  cloth,  that 
he  was  borne  out  by  the  fact  in  declaring  that  the 
wood  in  it  would  last  us  as  long  as  we  stayed;  it  was 
oak  wood,  hard  as  iron,  and  with  the  bellows  that  ac 
companied  it  we  blew  the  last  billet  of  it  into  a  solid 
coal  by  which  we  drank  our  last  coffee  in  that  hotel. 
His  spirit,  his  genial  hopefulness,  reconciled  us  to  the 
infirmities  of  the  house  during  the  period  of  transition 
beginning  for  it  and  covering  our  stay.  It  was  to  be 
rebuilt  on  a  scale  out-Eiitzing  the  Ritz ;  but  in  the  mean 
while  it  was  not  quite  the  Ritz.  There  was  a  time 
when  the  elevator-shaft  seemed  to  have  tapped  the 
awful  sources  of  the  smell  in  the  house  of  Cervantes  at 
Valladolid,  but  I  do  not  remember  what  blameless 
origin  the  concierge  assigned  to  the  odor,  or  whether 
it  had  anything  to  do  with  the  horses  and  the  hens 
which  a  chance-opened  back  door  showed  us  stabled  in 
the  rear  of  the  hotel's  grandiose  entrance. 

Our  tourist  clientele,  thanks  I  think  to  the  allure  of 
our  concierge  for  all  comers,  was  most  respectable, 
though  there  was  no  public  place  for  people  to  sit  but 
a  «mall  reading-room  colder  than  the  baths  of  Apollo. 
But  when  he  entered  the  place  it  was  as  if  a  fire  were 
kindled  in  the  minute  stove  never  otherwise  heated, 
and  the  old  English  and  French  newspapers  freshened 
themselves  up  to  the  actual  date  as  nearly  as  they  could. 
We  were  mostly,  perhaps,  Spanish  families  come  from 
our  several  provinces  for  a  bit  of  the  season  which  all 
Spanish  families  of  civil  condition  desire  more  or  less 
of:  lean,  dark  fathers,  slender,  white-stuccoed  daugh 
ters,  and  fat,  white-stuccoed  mothers;  very  still-faced, 
and  grave-mannered.  We  were  also  a  few  English,  and 

from  time  to  time  a  few  Americans,  but  I  believe  we 

109 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

were  not,  however  worthy,  very  great-world.  The  con- 
ciergu  who  had  so  skilfully  got  us  together  was  instant 
in  our  errands  and  commissions,  and  when  it  came  to 
two  of  us  being  shut  up  with  colds  brought  from  Bur 
gos  it  vas  he  who  supplemented  the  promptness  of  the 
apothecaries  in  sending  our  medicines  and  coming  him 
self  at  times  to  ask  after  our  welfare. 


IX 

In  a  strange  country  all  the  details  of  life  are  inter 
esting,  and  we  noticed  with  peculiar  interest  that  Spain 
was  a  country  where  the  prescriptions  were  written 
in  the  vulgar  tongue  instead  of  the  little  Latin  in  which 
prescriptions  are  addressed  to  the  apothecaries  of  other 
lands.  We  were  disposed  to  praise  the  faculty  if  not 
the  art  for  this,  but  our  doctor  forbade.  He  said  it 
was  because  the  Spanish  apothecaries  were  so  unlearned 
that  they  could  not  read  even  so  little  Latin  as  the 
shortest  prescription  contained.  Still  I  could  not  think 
the  custom  a  bad  one,  though  founded  on  ignorance, 
and  I  do  not  see  why  it  should  not  have  made  for  the 
greater  safety  of  those  who  took  the  medicine  if  those 
who  put  it  up  should  follow  a  formula  in  their  native 
tongue.  I  know  that  at  any  rate  we  found  the  Span 
ish  medicines  beneficial  and  were  presently  suffered  to 
go  out-of-doors,  but  with  those  severe  injunctions  against 
going  out  after  nightfall  or  opening  our  lips  when  we 
went  out  by  day.  It  was  rather  a  bother,  but  it  was 
fine  to  feel  one's  self  in  the  classic  Madrid  tradition 
of  danger  from  pneumonia  and  to  be  of  the  dignified 
company  of  the  Spanish  gentlemen  whom  we  met  with 
the  border  of  their  cloaks  over  their  mouths ;  like  being 

a  character  in  a  capa  y  espada  drama. 

no 


PHASES    OF    MADRID 

There  was  almost  as  little  acted  as  spoken  drama 
in  the  streets.  I  have  given  my  impression  of  the 
songlessness  of  Spain  in  Madrid  as  elsewhere,  but  if 
there  was  no  street  singing  there  was  often  street  play 
ing  by  pathetic  bands  of  blind  minstrels  with  guitars 
and  mandolins.  The  blind  abound  everywhere  in  Spain 
in  that  profession  of  street  beggary  which  I  always 
encouraged,  believing  as  I  do  that  comfort  in  this  un 
balanced  world  cannot  be  too  constantly  reminded  of 
misery.  As  the  hunchbacks  are  in  Italy,  or  the  wooden 
peg-legged  in  England,  so  the  blind  are  in  Spain  for 
number.  I  could  not  say  how  touching  the  sight  of 
their  sightlessness  was,  or  how  the  remembrance  of  it 
makes  me  wish  that  I  had  carried  more  coppers  with 
me  when  I  set  out.  I  would  gladly  authorize  the 
reader  when  he  goes  to  Madrid  to  do  the  charity  I  often 
neglected;  he  will  be  the  better  man,  or  even  woman, 
for  it;  and  he  need  not  mind  if  his  beneficiary  is  oc 
casionally  unworthy;  he  may  be  unworthy  himself;  I 
am  sure  I  was. 

But  the  Spanish  street  is  rarely  the  theatrical  spec 
tacle  that  the  Italian  street  nearly  always  is.  Now 
and  then  there  was  a  bit  in  Madrid  which  one  would 
be  sorry  to  have  missed,  such  as  the  funeral  of  a 
civil  magistrate,  otherwise  unknown  to  me,  which  I  saw 
pass  my  cafe  window :  a  most  architectural  black  hearse, 
under  a  black  roof,  drawn  by  eight  black  horses,  sable- 
plumed.  The  hearse  was  open  at  the  sides,  with  the 
coffin  fully  showing,  and  a  gold-laced  chapeau  bras  lying 
on  it.  Behind  came  twenty  or  twenty-five  gentlemen 
on  foot  in  the  modern  ineffectiveness  of  frock-coats  and 
top-hats,  and  after  them  eight  or  ten  closed  carriages. 
The  procession  passed  without  the  least  notice  from  the 
crowd,  which  I  saw  at  other  times  stirred  to  a  nutter  of 
emulation  in  its  small  boys  by  companies  of  infantry 

ill 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

marching  to  the  music  of  sharply  blown  bugles.  The 
men  were  handsomer  than  Italian  soldiers,  but  not  so 
handsome  as  the  English,  and  in  figure  they  were  not 
quite  the  deplorable  pigmies  one  often  sees  in  France. 
Their  bugles,  with  the  rhythmical  note  which  the  tram- 
cars  sound,  and  the  guitars  and  mandolins  of  the  blind 
minstrels,  made  the  only  street  music  I  remember  in 
Madrid. 

Between  the  daily  rains,  which  came  in  the  after 
noon,  the  sun  was  sometimes  very  hot,  but  it  was  always 
cool  enough  indoors.  The  indoors  .interests  were  not 
the  art  or  story  of  the  churches.  The  intensest  Catholic 
capital  in  Christendom  is  in  fact  conspicuous  in  noth 
ing  more  than  the  reputed  uninterestingness  of  its 
churches.  I  went  into  one  of  them,  however,  with  a 
Spanish  friend,  and  I  found  it  beautiful,  most  original, 
and  most  impressive  for  its  architecture  and  painting, 
but  I  forget  which  church  it  was.  We  were  going 
rather  a  desultory  drive  through  those  less  frequented 
parts  of  the  city  which  I  have  mentioned  as  like  a 
sort  of  muted  ISTaples:  poor  folk  living  much  out-of- 
doors,  buying  and  selling  at  hucksters'  stands  and 
booths,  and  swarming  about  the  chief  market,  where 
the  guilty  were  formerly  put  to  death,  but  the  innocent 
are  now  provisioned.  Outside  the  market  was  not  at 
tractive,  and  what  it  was  within  we  did  not  look  to  see. 
We  went  rather  to  satisfy  my  wish  to  see  whether  the 
Manzanares  is  as  groveling  a  stream  as  the  guide-books 
pretend  in  their  effort  to  give  a  just  idea  of  the  natural 
disadvantages  of  Madrid,  as  the  only  great  capital  with 
out  an  adequate  river.  But  whether  abetted  by  the  arts 
of  my  friend  or  not,  the  Manzanares  managed  to  con 
ceal  itself  from  me;  when  we  left  our  carriage  and 
went  to  look  for  it,  I  saw  only  some  pretty  rills  and 

falls  which  it  possibly  fed  and  which  lent  their  beauty 

112 


PHASES    OF    MADRID 

to  the  charming  up  and  down  hill  walks,  now  a  public 
pleasaunce,  but  formerly  the  groves  and  gardens  of 
the  royal  palace.  Our  talk  in  Spanish  from  him  and 
Italian  from  me  was  of  Tolstoy  and  several  esthetic 
and  spiritual  interests,  and  when  we  remounted  and 
drove  back  to  the  city,  whom  should  I  see,  hard  by 
the  King's  palace,  but  those  dear  Chilians  of  my  heart 
whom  we  had  left  at  Valladolid — husband,  wife,  sister, 
with  the  addition  of  a  Spanish  lady  of  very  acceptable 
comeliness,  in  white  gloves,  and  as  blithe  as  they.  In 
honor  of  the  capital  the  other  ladies  wore  white  gloves 
too,  but  the  husband  and  brother  still  kept  the  straw 
hat  which  I  had  first  known  him  in  at  San  Sebastian, 
and  which  I  hope  yet  to  know  him  by  in  ISTew  York. 
It  was  a  glad  clash  of  greetings  which  none  of  us  tried 
to  make  coherent  or  intelligible,  and  could  not  if  we 
had  tried.  They  acclaimed  their  hotel,  and  I  ours; 
but  on  both  sides  I  dare  say  we  had  our  reserves ;  and 
then  we  parted,  secure  that  the  kind  chances  of  travel 
would  bring  us  together  again  somewhere. 


I  did  not  visit  the  palace,  but  the  Royal  Armory 
I  had  seen  two  days  before  on  a  gay  morning  that 
had  not  yet  sorrowed  to  the  afternoon's  rain.  At  the 
gate  of  the  palace  I  fell  into  the  keeping  of  one  of  the 
authorized  guides  whom  I  wish  I  could  identify  so  that 
I  could  send  the  reader  to  pay  him  the  tip  I  came 
short  in.  It  is  a  pang  to  think  of  the  repressed  dis 
appointment  in  his  face  when  in  a  moment  of  insensate 
sparing  I  gave  him  the  bare  peseta  to  which  he  was 
officially  entitled,  instead  .of  the  two  or  three  due  his 

zeal  and  intelligence;  and  I  strongly  urge  my  readers 

113 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

to  be  on  their  guard  against  a  mistaken  meanness  like 
mine.  I  can  never  repair  that,  for  if  I  went  back  to 
the  Royal  Armory  I  should  not  know  him  by  sight, 
and  if  I  sought  among  the  guides  saying  I  was  the 
stranger  who  had  behaved  in  that  shabby  sort,  how 
would  that  identify  me  among  so  many  other  shabby 
strangers  ?  He  had  the  intelligence  to  leave  me  and 
the  constant  companion  of  these  travels  to  ourselves  as 
we  went  about  that  treasury  of  wonders,  but  before 
we  got  to  the  armory  he  stayed  us  with  a  delicate 
gesture  outside  the  court  of  the  palace  till  a  troop 
for  the  guard-mounting  had  gone  in.  Then  he  led  us 
across  the  fine,  beautiful  quadrangle  to  the  door  of  the 
museum,  and  waited  for  us  there  till  we  came  out.  By 
this  time  the  space  was  brilliant  with  the  confronted 
bodies  of  troops,  those  about  to  be  relieved  of  guard 
duty,  and  those  come  to  relieve  them,  and  our  guide 
got  us  excellent  places  where  we  could  see  everything 
and  yet  be  out  of  the  wind  which  was  beginning  to  blow 
cuttingly  through  the  gates  and  colonnades.  There 
were  all  arms  of  the  service — horse,  foot,  and  artillery ; 
and  the  ceremony,  with  its  pantomime  and  parley,  was 
much  more  impressive  than  the  changing  of  the  colors 
which  I  had  once  seen  at  Buckingham  Palace.  The 
Spanish  privates  took  the  business  not  less  seriously 
than  the  British,  and  however  they  felt  the  Spanish 
officers  did  not  allow  themselves  to  look  bored.  The 
marching  and  countermarching  was  of  a  refined  state- 
liness,  as  if  the  pace  were  not  a  goose  step  but  a  pea 
cock  step ;  and  the  music  was  of  an  exquisitely  plaintive 
and  tender  note,  which  seemed  to  grieve  rather  than 
exult;  I  believe  it  was  the  royal  march  which  they 
were  playing,  but  I  am  not  versed  in  such  matters. 

Nothing  could  have  been  fitter  than  the  quiet  beauty 
of  the  spectacle,  opening  through  the  westward  colon- 

114 


PHASES    OF    MADRID 

nade  to  the  hills  and  woods  of  the  royal  demesne,  with 
yellowing  and  embrowning  trees  that  billowed  from  dis 
tance  to  distance.  Some  day  these  groves  and  forests 
must  be  for  the  people's  pleasure,  as  all  royal  belong 
ings  seem  finally  to  be ;  and  in  the  mean  time  I  did  not 
grudge  the  landscape  to  the  young  king  and  queen  who 
probably  would  not  have  grudged  it  to  me.  Our  guide 
valued  himself  upon  our  admiration  of  it ;  without  our 
special  admiration  he  valued  himself  upon  the  impres 
sive  buildings  of  the  railway  station  in  the  middle 
distance.  I  forget  whether  he  followed  us  out  of  the 
quadrangle  into  the  roadway  where  we  had  the  advan 
tage  of  some  picturesque  army  wagons,  and  some 
wagoners  in  red-faced  jackets  and  red  trousers,  and 
top-boots  with  heavy  fringes  of  leathern  strings.  Yet 
it  must  have  been  he  who  made  us  aware  of  a  high- 
walled  inclosure  where  soldiers  found  worthy  of  death 
by  court  martial  could  be  conveniently  shot;  though  I 
think  we  discovered  for  ourselves  the  old  woman  curled 
up  out  of  the  wind  in  a  sentry-box,  and  sweetly  asleep 
there  while  the  boys  were  playing  marbles  on  the  smooth 
ground  before  it.  I  must  not  omit  the  peanut-boaster 
in  front  of  the  palace ;  it  was  in  the  figure  of  an  ocean 
steamer,  nearly  as  large  as  the  Lusitania,  and  had  smoke 
coming  out  of  the  funnel,  with  rudder  and  screw  com 
plete  and  doll  sailors  climbing  over  the  rigging. 

But  it  is  impossible  to  speak  adequately  of  the  things 
in  that  wonderful  armory.  If  the  reader  has  any 
pleasure  in  the  harnesses  of  Spanish  kings  and  cap 
tains,  from  the  great  Charles  the  Fifth  down  through 
all  the  Philips  and  the  Charleses,  he  can  glut  it  there. 
Their  suits  begin  almost  with  their  steel  baby  clothes, 
and  adapt  themselves  almost  to  their  senile  decrepitude. 
There  is  the  horse-litter  in  which  the  great  emperor 

was  borne  to  battle,   and   there   is  the   sword  which 

115 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

Isabella  the  great  queen  wore;  and  I  liked  looking  at 
the  lanterns  and  the  flags  of  the  Turkish  galleys  from 
the  mighty  sea-fight  of  Lepanto,  and  the  many  other 
trophies  won  from  the  Turks.  The  pavilion  of  Francis 
I.  taken  at  Pavia  was  of  no  secondary  interest,  and 
everywhere  was  personal  and  national  history  told  in 
the  weapons  and  the  armor  of  those  who  made  the  his 
tory.  Perhaps  some  time  the  peoples  will  gather  into 
museums  the  pens  and  pencils  and  chisels  of  authors 
and  artists,  and  the  old  caps  and  gowns  they  wore,  or 
the  chairs  they  sat  in  at  their  work,  or  the  pianos  and 
violoncellos  of  famous  musicians,  or  the  planes  of  sur 
passing  carpenters,  or  the  hammers  of  eminent  iron 
workers;  but  these  things  will  never  be  so  picturesque 
as  the  equipments  with  which  the  military  heroes  saved 
their  own  lives  or  took  others'.  We  who  have  never 
done  either  must  not  be  unreasonable  or  impatient.  It 
will  be  many  a  long  century  yet  before  we  are  appre 
ciated  at  the  value  we  now  set  upon  ourselves.  In 
the  mean  while  we  do  not  have  such  a  bad  time,  and 
we  are  not  so  easily  forgotten  as  some  of  those  princes 
and  warriors. 


XI 


One  of  the  first  errors  of  our  search  for  the  Archa3o- 
logical  Museum,  promoted  by  the  mistaken  kindness  of 
people  we  asked  the  way,  found  us  in  the  Academy  of 
Fine  Arts,  where  in  the  company  of  a  fat  and  flabby 
Rubens  (Susanna,  of  course,  and  those  filthy  Elders) 
we  chanced  on  a  portrait  of  Goya  by  himself:  a  fine 
head  most  takingly  shrewd.  But  there  was  another 
portrait  by  him,  of  the  ridiculous  Godoy,  Prince  of 
the  Peace,  a  sort  of  handsome,  foolish  fleshy  George 

Fourthish  person  looking  his  character  and  history: 

116 


PHASES    OF    MADRID 

one  of  the  miost  incredible  parasites  who  ever  fattened 
on  a  nation.  This  impossible  creature,  hated  more 
than  feared,  and  despised  more  than  hated,  who  mis 
ruled  a  generous  people  for  twenty-five  years,  through 
out  the  most  heroic  period  of  their  annals,  the  low-born 
paramour  of  their  queen  and  the  beloved  friend  of  the 
king  her  husband,  who  honored  and  trusted  him  with 
the  most  pathetic  single-hearted  and  simple-minded  de 
votion,  could  not  look  all  that  he  was  and  was  not; 
but  in  this  portrait  by  Goya  he  suggested  his  unutter 
able  worthlessness :  a  worthlessness  which  you  can  only 
begin  to  realize  by  successively  excluding  all  the  virtues, 
and  contrasting  it  with  the  sort  of  abandon  of  faith  on 
the  part  of  the  king ;  this  in  the  common  imbecility,  the 
triune  madness  of  the  strange  group,  has  its  sublimity. 
In  the  next  room  are  two  pieces  of  Goya's  which  re 
call  in  their  absolute  realism  another  passage  of  Span 
ish  history  with  unparalleled  effect.  They  represent, 
one  the  accused  heretics  receiving  sentence  before  a 
tribunal  of  the  Inquisition,  and  the  other  the  execution 
of  the  sentence,  where  the  victims  are  mocked  by  a 
sort  of  fools'  caps  inscribed  with  the  terms  of  their 
accusal.  Their  faces  are  turned  on  the  spectator,  who 
may  forget  them  if  he  can. 

I  had  the  help  of  a  beautiful  face  there  which  Goya 
had  also  painted:  the  face  of  Moratin,  the  historian 
of  the  Spanish  drama  whose  book  had  been  one  of  the 
consolations  of  exile  from  Spain  in  my  Ohio  village. 
That  fine  countenance  rapt  me  far  from  where  I  stood, 
to  the  village,  with  its  long  maple-shaded  summer  after 
noons,  and  its  long  lamp-lit  winter  nights  when  I  was 
trying  to  find  my  way  through  Moratin's  history  of 
the  Spanish  drama,  and  somehow  not  altogether  failing, 
so  that  fragments  of  the  fact  still  hang  about  me.  I 

wish  now  I  could  find  the  way  back  through  it,  or  even 

117 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

to  it,  but  between  me  and  it  there  are  so  many  forgotten 
passes  that  it  would  be  hopeless  trying.  I  can  only 
remember  the  pride  and  joy  of  finding  my  way  alone 
through  it,  and  emerging  from  time  to  time  into  the 
light  that  glimmered  before  me.  I  cannot  at  all  remem 
ber  whether  it  was  before  or  after  exploring  this  his 
tory  that  I  ventured  upon  the  trackless  waste  of  a 
volume  of  the  dramatists  themselves,  where  I  faith 
fully  began  with  the  earliest  and  came  down  to  those 
of  the  great  age  when  Cervantes  and  Calderon  and 
Lope  de  Vega  were  writing  the  plays.  It  was  either 
my  misfortune  that  I  read  Lope  and  not  Calderon, 
or  that  I  do  not  recall  reading  Calderon  at  all,  and 
know  him  only  by  a  charming  little  play  of  Madrid 
life  given  ten  or  fifteen  years  ago  by  the  pupils  of 
the  Dramatic  Academy  in  New  York.  My  lasting 
ignorance  of  this  master  was  not  for  want  of  know 
ing  how  great  he  was,  especially  from  Lowell,  who 
never  failed  to  dwell  on  it  when  the  talk  was  of 
Spanish  literature.  The  fact  is  I  did  not  get  much 
pleasure  out  of  Lope,  but  I  did  enjoy  the  great  tragedy 
of  Cervantes,  and  such  of  his  comedies  as  I  found  in 
that  massive  volume. 

I  did  not  realize,  however,  till  I  saw  that  play  of  Cal- 
deron's,  in  New  York,  how  much  the  Spanish  drama 
has  made  Madrid  its  scene ;  and  until  one  knows  modern 
Spanish  fiction  one  cannot  know  hoAv  essentially  the 
incongruous  city  is  the  capital  of  the  Spanish  imagina 
tion.  Of  course  the  action  of  Gil  Bias  largely  passes 
there,  but  Gil  Bias  in  only  adoptively  a  Spanish  novel, 
and  the  native  picaresque  story  is  oftener  at  home  in 
the  provinces;  but  since  Spanish  fiction  has  come  to 
full  consciousness  in  the  work  of  the  modern  masters 
it  has  resorted  more  and  more  to  Madrid.  If  I  speak 

only  of  Galdos  and  Valdes  by  name,  it  is  because  I 

118 


PHASES    OF    MADRID 

know  them  best  as  the  greatest  of  their  time;  but  I 
fancy  the  allure  of  the  capital  has  been  felt  by  every 
other  modern  more  or  less;  and  if  I  were  a  Spanish 
author  I  should  like  to  put  a  story  there.  If  I  were  a 
Spaniard  at  all,  I  should  like  to  live  there  a  part  of 
the  year,  or  to  come  up  for  some  sojourn,  as  the  real 
Spaniards  do.  In  such  an  event  I  should  be  able  to 
tell  the  reader  more  about  Madrid  than  I  now  know. 
I  should  not  be  poorly  keeping  to  hotels  and  galleries 
and  streets  and  the  like  surfaces  of  civilization;  but 
should  be  saying  all  sorts  of  well-informed  and  sur 
prising  things  about  my  fellow-citizens.  As  it  is  I 
have  tried  somewhat  to  say  how  I  think  they  look  to 
a  stranger,  and  if  it  is  not  quite  as  they  have  looked 
to  other  strangers  I  do  not  insist  upon  my  own  stranger's 
impression.  There  is  a  great  choice  of  good  books 
about  Spain,  so  that  I  do  not  feel  bound  to  add  to  them 
with  anything  like  finality. 

I  have  tried  to  give  a  sense  of  the  grand-opera  effect 
of  the  street  scene,  but  I  have  record  of  only  one  passage 
such  as  one  often  sees  in  Italy  where  moments  of  the 
street  are  always  waiting  for  transfer  to  the  theater.  A 
pair  had  posed  themselves,  across  the  way  from  our 
hotel,  against  the  large  closed  shutter  of  a  shop  which 
made  an  admirable  background.  The  woman  in  a  black 
dress,  with  a  red  shawl  over  her  shoulders,  stood  statu- 
esquely  immovable,  confronting  the  middle-class  man 
who,  while  people  went  and  came  about  them,  poured 
out  his  mind  to  her,  with  many  frenzied  gestures,  but 
mostly  using  one  hand  for  emphasis.  He  seemed  to  be 
telling  something  rather  than  asserting  himself  or  ac 
cusing  her ;  portraying  a  past  fact  or  defining  a  situa 
tion;  and  she  waited  immovably  silent  till  he  had  fin 
ished.  Then  she  began  and  warmed  to  her  work,  but  ap 
parently  without  anger  or  prejudice.  She  talked  herself 

119 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

out,  as  he  had  talked  himself  out.  He  waited  and  then 
he  left  her  and  crossed  to  the  other  corner.  She  called 
after  him  as  he  kept  on  down  the  street.  She  turned 
away,  but  stopped,  and  turned  again  and  called  after 
him  till  he  passed  from  sight.  Then  she  turned  once 
more  and  went  her  own  way.  Nobody  minded,  any 
more  than  if  they  had  been  two  unhappy  ghosts  in 
visibly  and  inaudibly  quarreling,  but  I  remained,  and 
remain  to  this  day,  afflicted  because  of  the  mystery  of 
their  dispute. 

We  did  not  think  there  were  so  many  boys,  pro 
portionately,  or  boys  let  loose,  in  Madrid  as  in  the  other 
towns  we  had  seen,  and  we  remarked  to  that  sort  of 
foreign  sojourner  who  is  so  often  met  in  strange  cities 
that  the  children  seemed  like  little  men  and  women. 
"  Yes/'  he  said,  "  the  Spaniards  are  not  children  until 
they  are  thirty  or  forty,  and  then  they  never  grow  up." 
It  was  perhaps  too  epigrammatic,  but  it  may  have 
caught  at  a  fact.  From  another  foreign  sojourner  I 
heard  that  the  Catholicism  of  Spain,  in  spite  of  all 
newspaper  appearances  to  the  contrary  and  many  bold 
novels,  is  still  intense  and  unyieldingly  repressive. 
But  how  far  the  severity  of  the  church  characterizes 
manners  it  would  be  hard  to  say.  Perhaps  these  are 
often  the  effect  of  temperament.  One  heard  more  than 
one  saw  of  the  indifference  of  shop-keepers  to  shoppers 
in  Madrid;  in  Andalusia,  say  especially  in  Seville,  one 
saw  nothing  of  it.  But  from  the  testimony  of  sufferers 
it  appears  to  be  the  Madrid  shop-keeper's  reasonable 
conception  that  if  a  customer  comes  to  buy  something 
it  is  because  he,  or  more  frequently  she,  wants  it  and 
is  more  concerned  than  himself  in  the  transaction.  He 
does  not  put  himself  about  in  serving  her,  and  if  she 
intimates  that  he  is  rudely  indifferent,  and  that  though 

she  has  often  come  to  him  before  she  will  never  come 

120 


PHASES    OF    MADKID 

again,  he  remains  tranquil.  From  experience  I  can 
not  say  how  true  this  is;  but  certainly  I  failed  to 
awaken  any  lively  emotion  in  the  booksellers  of  whom 
I  tried  to  buy  some  modern  plays.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  I  was  vexing  them  in  the  Oriental  calm  which 
they  would  have  preferred  to  my  money,  or  even  my 
interest  in  the  new  Spanish  drama.  But  in  a  shop 
where  fans  were  sold,  the  shopman,  taken  in  an  un 
guarded  moment,  seemed  really  to  enter  into  the  spirit 
of  our  selection  for  friends  at  home;  he  even  corrected 
my  wrong  accent  in  the  Spanish  word  for  fan,  which 
was  certainly  going  a  great  way. 


XII 


It  was  not  the  weather  for  fans  In  Madrid,  where 
it  rained  that  cold  rain  every  afternoon,  and  once 
the  whole  of  one  day,  and  we  could  not  reasonably 
expect  to  see  fans  in  the  hands  of  ladies  in  real  life 
so  much  as  in  the  pictures  of  ladies  on  the  fans  them 
selves.  In  fact,  I  suppose  that  to  see  the  Madrilenas 
most  in  character  one  should  see  them  in  summer  which 
in  southern  countries  is  the  most  characteristic  season. 
Theophile  Gautier  was  governed  by  this  belief  when 
he  visited  Spain  in  ,the  hottest  possible  weather,  and 
left  for  the  lasting  delight  of  the  world  the  record  of 
that  Voyage  en  Espagne  which  he  made  seventy-two 
years  ago.  He  then  thought  the  men  better  dressed 
than  the  women  at  Madrid.  Their  boots  are  as  "  var 
nished,  and  they  are  gloved  as  white  as  possible.  Their 
coats  are  correct  and  their  trousers  laudable;  but  the 
cravat  is  not  of  the  same  purity,  and  the  waistcoat, 
that  only  part  of  modern  dress  where  the  fancy  may 
play,  is  not  always  of  irreproachable  taste."  As  to 

121 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

the  women :  "  What  we  understand  in  France  as  the 
Spanish  type  does  not  exist  in  Spain.  .  .  One  imagines 
usually,  when  one  says  mantilla  and  senora,  an  oval, 
rather  long  and  pale,  with  large  dark  eyes,  surmounted 
with  brows  of  velvet,  a  thin  nose,  a  little  arched,  a 
mouth  red  as  a  pomegranate,  and,  above  all,  a  tone 
warm  and  golden,  justifying  the  verse  of  romance,  8he 
is  yellow  like  an  orange.  This  is  the  Arab  or  Moorish 
type  and  not  the  Spanish  type.  The  Madrilenas  are 
charming  in  the  full  acceptation  of  the  word:  out  of 
four  three  will  be  pretty ;  but  they  do  not  answer  at  all 
to  the  idea  we  have  of  them.  They  are  small,  delicate, 
well  formed,  the  foot  narrow  and  the  figure  curved, 
the  bust  of  a  rich  contour ;  but  their  skin  is  very  white, 
the  features  delicate  and  mobile,  the  mouth  heart- 
shaped  and  representing  perfectly  certain  portraits  of 
the  Regency.  Often  they  have  fair  hair,  and  you  can 
not  take  three  turns  in  the  Prado  without  meeting  eight 
blonds  of  all  shades,  from  the  ashen  blond  to  the  most 
vehement  red,  the  red  of  the  beard  of  Charles  V.  It 
is  a  mistake  to  think  there  are  no  blonds  in  Spain.  Blue 
eyes  abound  there,  but  they  are  not  so  much  liked  as  the 
black." 

Is  this  a  true  picture  of  the  actual  Madrilenas? 
What  I  say  is  that  seventy-two  years  have  passed  since 
it  was  painted  and  the  originals  have  had  time  to 
change.  What  I  say  is  that  it  was  nearly  always  rain 
ing,  and  I  could  not  be  sure.  What  I  say,  above  all, 
is  that  I  am  not  a  Frenchman  of  the  high  Romantic 
moment  and  that  what  I  chiefly  noticed  was  how  beau 
tiful  the  mantilla  was  whether  worn  by  old  or  young, 
how  fit,  how  gentle,  how  winning.  I  suppose  that  the 
women  we  saw  walking  in  it  were  never  of  the  highest 
class ;  who  would  be  driving  except  when  we  saw  them 

going  to  church.     But  they  were  often  of  the  latest 

122 


PHASES    OF    MADKID 

fashion,  with  their  feet  hobbled  by  the  narrow  skirts, 
of  which  they  lost  the  last  poignant  effect  by  not  having 
wide  or  high  or  slouch  or  swashbuckler  hats  on;  they 
were  not  top-heavy.  What  seems  certain  is  that  the 
Spanish  women  are  short  and  slight  or  short  and  fat. 
I  find  it  recorded  that  when  a  young  English  couple 
came  into  the  Royal  Armory  the  girl  looked  impossibly 
tall  and  fair. 

The  women  of  the  lower  classes  are  commonly  hand 
some  and  carry  themselves  finely ;  their  heads  are  bare, 
even  of  mantillas,  and  their  skirts  are  ample.  When  it 
did  not  rain  they  added  to  the  gaiety  of  the  streets, 
and  when  it  did  to  their  gloom.  Wet  or  dry  the  streets 
were  always  thronged;  nobody,  apparently,  stayed  in 
doors  who  could  go  out,  and  after  two  days'  housing, 
even  with  a  fire  to  air  and  warm  our  rooms,  we  did  not 
wonder  at  the  universal  preference.  As  I  have  said,  the 
noise  that  we  heard  in  the  streets  was  mainly  the  clatter 
of  shoes  and  hoofs,  but  now  and  then  there  were  street 
cries  besides  those  I  have  noted.  There  was  in  par 
ticular  a  half-grown  boy  in  our  street  who  had  a  flat 
basket  decorated  with  oysters  at  his  feet,  and  for  long 
hours  of  the  day  and  dark  he  cried  them  incessantly. 
I  do  not  know  that  he  ever  sold  them  or  cared ;  his  affair 
was  to  cry  them. 


VI 

A   NIGHT   AND   DAY   IN   TOLEDO 

IF  you  choose  to  make  your  visit  to  Toledo  an  episode 
of  your  stay  in  Madrid,  you  have  still  to  choose  be 
tween  going  at  eight  in  the  morning  and  arriving  back 
at  five  in  the  evening,  or  going  at  five  one  evening  and 
coming  back  at  the  same  hour  the  next.  In  either 
case  you  will  have  two  hours'  jolting  each  way  over 
the  roughest  bit  of  railroad  in  the  world,  and  if  your 
mozo,  before  you  could  stop  him,  has  selected  for  your 
going  a  compartment  over  the  wheels,  you  can  never  be 
sure  that  he  has  done  worse  for  you  than  you  will  have 
done  for  yourself  when  you  come  back  in  a  compart 
ment  between  the  trucks.  However  you  go  or  come, 
you  remain  in  doubt  whether  you  have  been  jolting  over 
rails  jointed  at  every  yard,  or  getting  on  without  any 
track  over  a  cobble-stone  pavement.  Still,  if  the  com 
partment  is  wide  and  well  cushioned,  as  it  is  in  Spain 
nearly  always,  with  free  play  for  your  person  between 
roof  and  floor  and  wall  and  wall ;  and  if  you  go  at  five 
o'clock  you  have  from  your  windows,  as  long  as  the 
afternoon  light  lasts,  while  you  bound  and  rebound, 
glimpses  of  far-stretching  wheat-fields,  with  nearer 
kitchen-gardens  rich  in  beets  and  cabbages,  alternating 
with  purple  and  yellow  patches  of  vineyard. 


I  find  from  my  ever-faithful  note-book  that  the  land 
scape  seemed  to  grow  drearier  as  we  got  away  from 

124 


A    NIGHT    AND    DAY    IN    TOLEDO 

Madrid,  but  this  may  have  been  the  effect  of  the  waning 
day:  a  day  which  at  its  brightest  had  been  dim  from 
recurrent  rain  and  incessant  damp.  The  gloom  was  not 
relieved  by  the  long  stops  at  the  frequent  stations, 
though  the  stops  were  good  for  getting  one's  breath, 
and  for  trying  to  plan  greater  control  over  one's  activi 
ties  when  the  train  should  be  going  on  again.  The 
stations  themselves  were  not  so  alluring  that  we  were 
not  willing  to  get  away  from  them;  and  we  were  glad 
to  get  away  from  them  by  train,  instead  of  by  mule- 
team  over  the  rainy  levels  to  the  towns  that  glimmered 
along  the  horizon  twc  or  three  miles  off.  There  had 
been  nothing  to  lift  the  heart  in  the  sight  of  two  small 
boys  ready  perched  on  one  horse,  or  of  a  priest  difficult 
ly  mounting  another  in  his  long  robe.  At  the  only 
station  which  I  can  remember  having  any  town  about 
it  a  large  number  of  our  passengers  left  the  train,  and 
I  realized  that  they  were  commuters  like  those  who 
might  have  been  leaving  it  at  some  soaking  suburb 
of  Long  Island  or  New  Jersey.  In  the  sense  of  human 
brotherhood  which  the  fact  inspired  I  was  not  so  lonely 
as  I  might  have  been,  when  we  resumed  our  gloomy 
progress,  with  all  that  punctilio  which  custom  demands 
of  a  Spanish  way-train.  First  the  station-master  rings 
a  bell  of  alarming  note  hanging  on  the  wall,  and  the 
rnozos  run  along  the  train  shutting  the  car  doors.  After 
an  interval  some  other  official  sounds  a  pocket  whistle, 
and  then  there  is  still  time  for  a  belated  passenger  to 
find  his  car  and  scramble  aboard.  When  the  ensuing 
pause  prolongs  itself  until  you  think  the  train  has  de 
cided  to  remain  all  day,  or  all  night,  and  several  pas 
sengers  have  left  it  again,  the  locomotive  rouses  itself 
and  utters  a  peremptory  screech.  This  really  means 
going,  but  your  doubt  has  not  been  fully  overcome  when 
the  wheels  begin  to  bump  under  your  compartment, 

125 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

and  you  set  your  teeth  and  clutch  your  seat,  and  other 
wise  prepare  yourself  for  the  renewal  of  your  acrobatic 
feats.  I  may  not  get  the  order  of  the  signals  for  de 
parture  just  right,  but  I  am  sure  of  their  number. 
Perhaps  the  Sud-Express  starts  with  less,  but  the  Sud- 
Express  is  partly  French. 

It  had  been  raining  intermittently  all  day ;  now  that 
the  weary  old  day  was  done  the  young  night  took  up 
the  work  and  vigorously  devoted  itself  to  a  steady  down 
pour  which,  when  we  reached  our  hotel  in  Toledo,  had 
taken  the  role  of  a  theatrical  tempest,  with  sudden  peals 
of  thunder  and  long  loud  bellowing  reverberations  and 
blinding  flashes  of  lightning,  such  as  the  wildest  stage 
effects  of  the  tempest  in  the  Catskills  when  Rip  Van 
Winkle  is  lost  would  have  been  nothing  to.  Forebod 
ing  the  inner  chill  of  a  Spanish  hotel  on  such  a  day, 
we  had  telegraphed  for  a  fire  in  our  rooms,  and  our 
eccentricity  had  been  interpreted  in  spirit  as  well  as  in 
letter.  It  was  not  the  habitual  hotel  omnibus  which 
met  us  at  the  station,  but  a  luxurious  closed  carriage 
commanded  by  an  interpreter  who  intuitively  opened 
our  compartment  door,  and  conveyed  us  dry  and  warm 
to  our  hotel,  in  every  circumstance  of  tender  re 
gard  for  our  comfort,  during  the  slow,  sidelong  up 
hill  climb  to  the  city  midst  details  of  historic  and 
romantic  picturesqueness  which  the  lightning  mo 
mently  flashed  in  sight.  Erom  our  carriage  we 
passed  as  in  a  dream  between  the  dress-coated  head 
waiter  and  the  skull-capped  landlord  who  silently 
and  motionlessly  received  us  in  the  Gothic  doorway, 
and  mounted  by  a  stately  stair  from  a  beautiful  glass- 
roofed  patio,  columned  round  with  airy  galleries,  to 
the  rooms  from  which  a  smoky  warmth  gushed  out  to 
welcome  us. 

The  warmth  was  from  the  generous  blaze  kindled 
126 


A    NIGHT    AND    DAY    IN    TOLEDO 

in  the  fireplace  against  onr  coming,  and  the  smoke  was 
from  the  crevices  in  a  chimneypiece  not  sufficiently 
calked  with  newspapers  to  keep  the  smoke  going  up 
the  flue.  The  fastidious  may  think  this  a  defect  in  our 
perfect  experience,  but  we  would  not  have  had  it  other 
wise,  if  we  could,  and  probably  we  could  not.  We 
easily  assumed  that  we  were  in  the  palace  of  some 
haughty  hidalgo,  adapted  to  the  uses  of  a  modern  hotel, 
with  a  magical  prevision  which  need  not  include  the 
accurate  jointing  of  a  chimneypiece.  The  storm  bel 
lowed  and  blazed  outside,  the  rain  strummed  richly 
on  the  patio  roof  which  the  lightning  illumined,  and 
as  we  descended  that  stately  stair,  with  its  walls  ramped 
and  foliaged  over  with  heraldic  fauna  and  flora,  I  felt 
as  never  before  the  disadvantage  of  not  being  still 
fourteen  years  old. 

But  you  cannot  be  of  every  age  at  once  and  it  was 
no  bad  thing  to  be  presently  sitting  down  in  my  actual 
epoch  at  one  of  those  excellent  Spanish  dinners  which 
no  European  hotel  can  surpass  and  no  American  hotel 
can  equal.  It  may  seem  a  descent  from  the  high  horse, 
the  winged  steed  of  dreaming,  to  have  been  following 
those  admirable  courses  with  unflagging  appetite,  as 
it  were  on  foot,  but  man  born  of  woman  is  hungry 
after  such  a  ride  as  ours  from  Madrid;  and  it  was  with 
no  appreciable  loss  to  our  sense  of  enchantment  that 
we  presently  learned  from  our  host,  waiting  skull- 
capped  in  the  patio,  that  we  were  in  no  real  palace  of 
an  ancient  hidalgo,  but  were  housed  as  we  found  our 
selves  by  the  fancy  of  a  rich  nobleman  of  Toledo  whom 
the  whim  had  taken  to  equip  his  city  with  a  hotel  of 
poetic  perfection.  I  am  afraid  I  have  forgotten  his 
name;  perhaps  I  should  not  have  the  right  to  parade 
it  here  if  I  remembered  it ;  but  I  cannot  help  saluting 
him  brother  in  imagination,  and  thanking  him  for  one 

127 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

of  the  rarest  pleasures  that  travel,  even  Spanish  travel, 
has  given  me. 


IT 


One  must  recall  the  effect  of  such  a  gentle  fantasy 
as  his  with  some  such  emotion  as  one  recalls  a  pleas 
ant  tale  unexpectedly  told  when  one  feared  a  repetition 
of  stale  commonplaces,  and  I  now  feel  a  pang  of  retro 
active  self-reproach  for  not  spending  the  whole  evening 
after  dinner  in  reading  up  the  story  of  that  most  storied 
city  where  this  Spanish  castle  received  us.  What  better 
could  I  have  done  in  the  smoky  warmth  of  our  hearth- 
fire  than  to  con,  by  the  light  of  the  electric  bulb  dangling 
overhead,  its  annals  in  some  such  voluntarily  quaint 
and  unconsciously  old-fashioned  volume  as  Irving's 
Legends  of  the  Conquest  of  Spain;  or  to  read  in  some 
such  (if  there  is  any  such  other)  imperishably  actual 
and  unfadingly  brilliant  record  of  impressions  as 
Gautier's  Voyage  en  Espagne,  the  miserably  tragic  tale 
of  that  poor,  wicked,  over-punished  last  of  the  Gothic 
kings,  Don  Roderick?  It  comes  to  much  the  same 
effect  in  both,  and  as  I  knew  it  already  from  the  notes 
to  Scott's  poem  of  Don  Roderick,  which  I  had  read 
sixty  years  before  in  the  loft  of  our  log  cabin  (long 
before  the  era  of  my  unguided  Spanish  studies),  I 
found  it  better  to  go  to  bed  after  a  day  which  had 
not  been  without  its  pains  as  well  as  pleasures.  I 
could  recall  the  story  well  enough  for  all  purposes  of 
the  imagination  as  I  found  it  in  the  fine  print  of  those 
notes,  and  if  I  could  believe  the  reader  did  not  knoAv 
it  I  would  tell  him  now  how  this  wretched  Don  Roderick 
betrayed  the  daughter  of  Count  Julian  whom  her  father 
had  intrusted  to  him  here  in  his  capital  of  Toledo, 

when,  with  the  rest  of  Spain,  it  had  submitted  to  his 

128 


A    NIGHT    AND    DAY    IN    TOLEDO 

rule.  That  was  in  the  eighth  century  when  the  hearts 
of  kings  were  more  easily  corrupted  by  power  than 
perhaps  in  the  twentieth;  and  it  is  possible  that  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  politics  mixed  up  with  Count 
Julian's  passion  for  revenge  on  the  king,  when  he 
invited  the  Moors  to  invade  his  native  land  and  helped 
them  overrun  it.  The  conquest,  let  me  remind  the 
reader,  was  also  abetted  by  the  Jews  who  had  been 
flourishing  mightily  under  the  Gothic  anarchy,  but 
whom  Don  Roderick  had  reduced  to  a  choice  between 
exile  or  slavery  when  he  came  to  full  power.  Every 
one  knows  how  in  a  few  weeks  the  whole  peninsula 
fell  before  the  invaders.  Toledo  fell  after  the  battle 
of  Guadalete,  where  even  the  Bishop  of  Seville  fought 
on  their  side,  and  Roderick  was  lastingly  numbered 
among  the  missing,  and  was  no  doubt  killed,  as  nothing 
has  since  been  heard  of  him.  It  was  not  until  nearly 
three  hundred  years  afterward  that  the  Christians  re 
covered  the  city.  By  this  time  they  were  no  longer 
Arians,  but  good  Catholics;  so  good  that  Philip  II. 
himself,  one  of  the  best  of  Catholics  (as  I  have  told), 
is  said  to  have  removed  the  capital  to  Madrid  because 
he  could  not  endure  the  still  more  scrupulous  Catho 
licity  of  the  Toledan  Bishop. 

Nobody  is  obliged  to  believe  this,  but  I  should  be 
sorry  if  any  reader  of  mine  questioned  the  insurpassable 
antiquity  of  Toledo,  as  attested  by  a  cloud  of  chron 
iclers.  Theophile  Gautier  notes  that  "  the  most  mod 
erate  place  the  epoch  of  its  foundation  before  the 
Deluge,"  and  he  does  not  see  why  they  do  not  put 
the  time  "  under  the  pre-Adamite  kings,  some  years 
before  the  creation  of  the  world.  Some  attribute  the 
honor  of  laying  its  first  stone  to  Jubal,  others  to  the 
Greek;  some  to  the  Roman  consuls  Tolmor  and  Brutus; 

some  to  the  Jews  who  entered  Spain  with  Nebuchad- 

129 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

nezzar,  resting  their  theory  on  the  etymology  of  Toledo, 
which  comes  from  Toledoth,  a  Hebrew  word  signifying 
generations,  because  the  Twelve  Tribes  had  helped  to 
build  and  people  it." 

in 

Even  if  the  whole  of  this  was  not  accurate,  it  offered 
such  an  embarrassing  abundance  to  the  choice  that  I  am 
glad  I  knew  little  or  nothing  of  the  antagonistic  origins 
when  I  opened  my  window  to  the  sunny  morning  which 
smiled  at  the  notion  of  the  overnight  tempest,  and 
lighted  all  the  landscape  on  that  side  of  the  hotel.  The 
outlook  was  over  vast  plowed  lands  red  as  Virginia  or 
ISFew  Jersey  fields,  stretching  and  billowing  away  from 
the  yellow  Tagus  in  the  foreground  to  the  mountain- 
walled  horizon,  with  far  stretches  of  forest  in  the  middle 
distance.  What  riches  of  gray  roof,  of  white  wall,  of 
glossy  green,  or  embrowning  foliage  in  the  city  gardens 
the  prospect  included,  one  should  have  the  brush  rather 
than  the  pen  to  suggest ;  or  else  one  should  have  an  in 
exhaustible  ink-bottle  with  every  color  of  the  chromatic 
scale  in  it  to  pour  the  right  tints.  Mostly,  however, 
I  should  say  that  the  city  of  Toledo  is  of  a  mellow 
gray,  and  the  country  of  Toledo  a  rich  orange.  Seen 
from  any  elevation  the  gray  of  the  town  made  me  think 
of  Genoa;  and  if  the  reader's  knowledge  does  not  en 
able  him  to  realize  it  from  this  association,  he  had  better 
lose  no  time  in  going  to  Genoa. 

I  myself  should  prefer  going  again  to  Toledo,  where 
we  made  only  a  day's  demand  upon  the  city's  wealth 
of  beauty  when  a  lifetime  would  hardly  have  exhausted 
it.  Yet  I  would  not  counsel  any  one  to  pass  his  whole 
life  in  Toledo  unless  he  was  sure  he  could  bear  the 
fullness  of  that  beauty.  Add  insurpassable  antiquity, 

add  tragedy,  add  unendurable  orthodoxy,  add  the  pathos 

130 


A    NIGHT    AND    DAY    IN    TOLEDO 

of  hopeless  decay,  and  I  think  I  would  rather  give 
a  day  than  a  lifetime  to  Toledo.  Or  I  would  like  to 
go  back  and  give  another  day  to  it  and  come  every 
year  and  give  a  day.  This  very  moment,  instead  of 
writing  of  it  in  a  high  New  York  flat  and  looking 
out  on  a  prospect  incomparably  sky-scrapered,  I  would 
rather  be  in  that  glass-roofed  patio  of  our  histrionic 
hotel,  engaging  the  services  of  one  of  the  most  admir 
able  guides  who  ever  fell  to  the  lot  of  mortal  Ameri 
cans,  while  much  advised  by  our  skull-capped  landlord 
to  shun  the  cicerone  of  another  hotel  as  "  an  Italian 
man,"  with  little  or  no  English. 

As  soon  as  we  appeared  outside  the  beggars  of  Toledo 
swarmed  upon  us;  but  I  hope  it  was  not  from  them 
I  formed  the  notion  that  the  beauty  of  the  place  was 
architectural  and  not  personal,  though  these  poor  things 
were  as  deplorably  plain  as  they  were  obviously  mis 
erable.  The  inhabitants  who  did  not  ask  alms  were 
of  course  in  the  majority,  but  neither  were  these  im 
pressive  in  looks  or  bearing.  Rather,  I  should  say, 
their  average  was  small  and  dark,  and  in  color  of  eyes 
and  hair  as  well  as  skin  they  suggested  the  African 
race  that  held  Toledo  for  four  centuries.  Neither 
here  nor  anywhere  else  in  Spain  are  there  any  traces 
of  the  Jews  who  helped  bring  the  Arabs  in;  once  for 
all,  that  people  have  been  banished  so  perfectly  that 
they  do  not  show  their  noses  anywhere.  Possibly  they 
exist,  but  they  do  not  exist  openly,  any  more  than  the 
descendants  of  the  Moorish  invaders  practise  their 
Moslem  rites.  As  for  the  beggars,  to  whom  I  return  as 
they  constantly  returned  to  us,  it  did  not  avail  to  do 
them  charity;  that  by  no  means  dispersed  them;  the 
thronging  misery  and  mutilation  in  the  lame,  the  halt 
and  the  blind,  was  as  great  at  our  coming  back  to  our 
hotel  as  our  going  out  of  it.  They  were  of  every  age 

131 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

and  sex;  the  very  school-children  left  their  sports  to 
chance  our  charity;  and  it  is  still  with  a  pang  that  I 
remember  the  little  girl  whom  we  denied  a  copper  when 
she  was  really  asking  for  a  florecito  out  of  the  nosegay 
that  one  of  us  carried.  But  how  could  we  know  that 
it  was  a  little  flower  and  not  a  "  little  dog  "  she  wanted  ? 
There  was  something  vividly  spectacular  in  the 
square,  by  no  means  large,  which  we  came  into  on 
turning  the  corner  from  our  hotel.  It  was  a  sort  of 
market-place  as  well  as  business  place,  and  it  looked 
as  if  it  might  be  the  resort  at  certain  hours  of  the 
polite  as  well  as  the  impolite  leisure  of  a  city  of  leisure 
not  apparently  overworked  in  any  of  its  classes.  But 
at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  it  was  empty  enough,  and 
after  a  small  purchase  at  one  of  the  shops  we  passed 
from  it  without  elbowing  or  being  elbowed,  and  found 
ourselves  at  the  portal  of  that  ancient  posada  where 
Cervantes  is  said  to  have  once  sojourned  at  least  long 
enough  to  write  one  of  his  Exemplary  Novels.  He  was 
of  such  a  ubiquitous  habit  that  if  we  had  visited  every 
city  of  Spain  we  should  have  found  some  witness  of 
his  stay,  but  I  do  not  believe  we  could  have  found  any 
more  satisfactory  than  this.  It  is  verified  by  a  tablet  in 
its  outer  wall,  and  within  it  is  convincingly  a  posada 
of  his  time.  It  has  a  large  low-vaulted  interior,  with 
the  carts  and  wagons  of  the  muleteers  at  the  right  of 
the  entrance,  and  beyond  these  the  stalls  of  the  mules 
where  they  stood  chewing  their  provender,  and  glancing 
uninterestedly  round  at  the  intruders,  for  plainly  we 
were  not  of  the  guests  who  frequent  the  place.  Such, 
for  a  chamber  like  those  around  and  behind  the  stalls, 
on  the  same  earthen  level,  pay  five  cents  of  our  money 
a  day;  they  supply  their  own  bed  and  board  and  pay 
five  cents  more  for  the  use  of  a  fire. 

Some  guests  were  coming  and  going  in  the  dim  light 
132 


A    NIGHT    AND    DAY    IN    TOLEDO 

of  the  cavernous  spaces;  others  were  squatting  on  the 
ground  before  their  morning  meal.  An  endearing 
smoke-browned  wooden  gallery  went  round  three  sides 
of  the  patio  overhead ;  half-way  to  this  at  one  side  rose 
an  immense  earthen  watei  jar,  dim  red;  piles  of  straw 
mats,  which  were  perhaps  the  bedding  of  the  guests, 
heaped  the  ground  or  hung  from  the  gallery;  and  the 
guests,  among  them  a  most  beautiful  youth,  black  as 
Africa,  but  of  a  Greek  perfection  of  profile,  regarded 
us  with  a  friendly  indifference  that  contrasted  striking 
ly  with  the  fixed  stare  of  the  bluish-gray  hound  beside 
one  of  the  wagons.  He  had  a  human  effect  of  having 
brushed  his  hair  from  his  strange  grave  eyes,  and  of  a 
sad,  hopeless  puzzle  in  the  effort  to  make  us  out.  If 
he  was  haunted  by  some  inexplicable  relation  in  me 
to  the  great  author  whose  dog  he  undoubtedly  had  been 
in  a  retroactive  incarnation,  and  was  thinking  to  ques 
tion  me  of  that  ever  unfulfilled  boyish  self-promise  of 
writing  the  life  of  Cervantes,  I  could  as  successfully 
have  challenged  him  to  say  how  and  where  in  such  a 
place  as  that  an  Exemplary  Novelist  could  have  written 
even  the  story  of  The  Illustrious  Scullion.  But  he 
seemed  on  reflection  not  to  push  the  matter  with  me, 
and  I  left  him  still  lost  in  his  puzzle  while  I  came 
away  in  mine.  Whether  Cervantes  really  wrote  one  of 
his  tales  there  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  he  could  have 
exactly  studied  from  that  posada  the  setting  of  the 
scene  for  the  episode  of  the  enchanted  castle  in  Don 
Quixote.,  where  the  knight  suffered  all  the  demoniacal 
torments  which  a  jealous  and  infuriate  muleteer  knew 
how  to  inflict. 

IV 

Upon  the  whole  I  am  not  sure  that  I  was  more 

edified  by  the  cathedral  of  Toledo,  though  I  am  afraid 

133 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

to  own  it,  and  must  make  haste  to  say  that  it  is  a 
cathedral  surpassing  in  some  things  any  other  cathedral 
in  Spain.  Chiefly  it  surpasses  them  in  the  glory  of  that 
stupendous  retablo  which  fills  one  whole  end  of  the 
vast  fane,  and  mounting  from  floor  to  roof,  tells  the 
Christian  story  with  an  ineffable  fullness  of  dramatic 
detail,  up  to  the  tragic  climax  of  the  crucifixion,  the 
Calvario,  at  the  summit.  Every  fact  of  it  fixes  itself 
the  more  ineffaceably  in  the  consciousness  because  of 
that  cunningly  studied  increase  in  the  stature  of  the 
actors,  who  always  appear  life-size  in  spite  of  their 
lift  from  level  to  level  above  the  spectator.  But  what 
is  the  use,  what  is  the  use  ?  Am  I  to  abandon  the 
young  and  younger  wisdom  with  wrhich  I  have  refrained 
in  so  many  books  from  attempting  the  portrayal  of  any 
Italian,  any  English  church,  and  fall  into  the  folly, 
now  that  I  am  old,  of  trying  to  say  again  in  words 
what  one  of  the  greatest  of  Spanish  churches  says  in 
form,  in  color  ?  Let  me  rather  turn  from  that  vainest 
endeavor  to  the  trivialities  of  sight-seeing  which  endear 
the  memory  of  monuments  and  make  the  experience  of 
them  endurable.  The  beautiful  choir,  with  its  walls 
pierced  in  gigantic  filigree,  might  have  been  art  or 
not,  as'  one  chose,  but  the  three  young  girls  who  smiled 
and  whispered  with  the  young  man  near  it  were  nature, 
which  there  could  be  no  two  minds  about.  They  were 
pathetically  privileged  there  to  a  moment  of  the  free 
interplay  of  youthful  interests  and  emotions  which  the 
Spanish  convention  forbids  less  in  the  churches  than 
anywhere  else. 

The  Spanish  religion  is,  in  fact,  kind  to  the  young 
in  many  ways,  and  on  our  way  to  the  cathedral  we 
had  paused  at  a  shrine  of  the  Virgin  in  appreciation 
of  her  friendly  offices  to  poor  girls  wanting  husbands ; 
they  have  onlv  to  drop  a  pin  inside  the  grating  before 

134 


A    NIGHT    AND    DAY    IN    TOLEDO 

her  and  draw  a  husband,  tall  for  a  large  pin  and  short 
for  a  little  one;  or  if  they  can  make  their  offering  in 
coin,  their  chances  of  marrying  money  are  good.  The 
Virgin  is  always  ready  to  befriend  her  devotees,  and 
in  the  cathedral  near  that  beautiful  choir  screen  she  has 
a  shrine  above  the  stone  where  she  alighted  when  she 
brought  a  chasuble  to  St.  Ildefonso  (she  owed  him 
something  for  his  maintenance  of  her  Immaculate  Con 
ception  long  before  it  was  imagined  a  dogma)  and  left 
the  print  of  her  foot  in  the  pavement.  The  fact  is 
attested  by  the  very  simple  yet  absolute  inscription: 

Quando  la  Reina  del  Cielo 
Puso  los  pies  en  el  suelo, 
En  esta  piedra  los  puso, 

or  as  my  English  will  have  it: 

When  the  Queen  of  Heaven  put 
Upon  the  earth  her  foot, 
She  put  it  on  this  stone 

and  left  it  indelible  there,  so  that  now  if  you  thrust 
your  finger  through  the  grille  and  touch  the  place  you 
get  off  three  hundred  years  of  purgatory:  not  much 
in  the  count  of  eternity,  but  still  something. 

We  saw  a  woman  and  a  priest  touching  it  as  we  stood 
by  and  going  away  enviably  comforted;  but  we  were 
there  as  connoisseurs,  not  as  votaries;  and  we  were 
trying  to  be  conscious  solely  of  the  surpassing  grandeur 
and  beauty  of  the  cathedral.  Here  as  elsewhere  in 
Spain  the  passionate  desire  of  the  race  to  realize  a  fact 
in  art  expresses  itself  gloriously  or  grotesquely  accord 
ing  to  the  occasion.  The  rear  of  the  chorus  is  one  vast 
riot  of  rococo  sculpture,  representing  I  do  not  know 
what  mystical  event;  but  down  through  the  midst  of 

the  livingly  studied  performance  a  mighty  angel  comes 

135 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

plunging,  with  his  fine  legs  following  his  torso  through 
the  air,  like  those  of  a  diver  taking  a  header  into  the 
water.  Nothing  less  than  the  sublime  touch  of  those 
legs  would  have  satisfied  the  instinct  from  which  and 
for  which  the  artist  worked;  they  gave  reality  to  the 
affair  in  every  part. 

I  wish  I  could  give  reality  to  every  part  of  that  most 
noble,  that  most  lovably  beautiful  temple.  We  had 
only  a  poor  half -hour  for  it,  and  we  could  not  do  more 
than  flutter  the  pages  of  the  epic  it  was  and  catch  here 
and  there  a  word,  a  phrase :  a  word  writ  in  architecture 
or  sculpture,  a  phrase  richly  expressed  in  gold  and 
silver  and  precious  marble,  or  painted  in  the  dyes  of  the 
dawns  and  sunsets  which  used  to  lend  themselves  so 
much  more  willingly  to  the  arts  than  they  seem  to  do 
now.  From  our  note-books  I  find  that  this  cathedral 
of  Toledo  appeared  more  wonderful  to  one  of  us  than 
the  cathedral  of  Burgos;  but  who  knows?  It  might 
have  been  that  the  day  was  warmer  and  brighter  and 
had  not  yet  shivered  and  saddened  to  the  cold  rain  it 
ended  in.  At  any  rate  the  vast  church  filled  itself 
more  and  more  with  the  solemn  glow  in  which  we  left 
it  steeped  when  we  went  out  and  took  our  dreamway 
through  the  narrow,  winding,  wandering  streets  that 
seemed  to  lure  us  where  they  would.  One  of  them 
climbed  with  us  to  the  Alcazar,  which  is  no  longer  any 
great  thing  to  see  in  itself,  but  which  opens  a  hos 
pitable  space  within  its  court  for  a  prospect  of  so  much 
of  the  world  around  Toledo,  the  world  of  yellow  river 
and  red  fields  and  blue  mountains,  and  white-clouded 
azure  sky,  that  we  might  well  have  mistaken  it  for  the 
whole  earth.  In  itself,  as  I  say,  the  Alcazar  is  no  great 
thing  for  where  it  is,  but  if  we  had  here  in  New  York 
an  Alcazar  that  remembered  historically  back  through 

French,  English,  Arabic,  Gothic.  Eoman,  and  Cartha- 

136 


A    NIGHT    AND    DAY    IN    TOLEDO 

ginian  occupations  to  the  inarticulate  Iberian  past  we 
should  come,  I  suppose,  from  far  and  near  to  visit  it. 
Now,  however,  after  gasping  at  its  outlook,  we  left  it 
hopelessly,  and  lost  ourselves,  except  for  our  kindly 
guide,  in  the  crooked  little  stony  lanes,  with  the  sun 
hot  on  our  backs  and  the  shade  cool  in  our  faces.  There 
were  Moorish  bits  and  suggestions  in  the  white  walls 
and  the  low  flat  roofs  of  the  houses,  but  these  were  not 
so  jealous  of  their  privacy  as  such  houses  were  once 
meant  to  be.  Through  the  gate  of  one  we  were  led 
into  a  garden  of  simple  flowers  belted  with  a  world- 
old  parapet,  over  which  we  could  look  at  a  stretch  of 
the  Gothic  wall  of  King  Wamba's  time,  before  the 
miserable  Eoderick  won  and  lost  his  kingdom.  A  pome 
granate  tree,  red  with  fruit,  overhung  us,  and  from  the 
borders  of  marigolds  and  zinnias  and  German  clover 
the  gray  garden-wife  gathered  a  nosegay  for  us.  She 
said  she  was  three  duros  and  a  half  old,  as  who  should 
say  three  dollars  and  a  half,  and  she  had  a  grim  amuse 
ment  in  so  translating  her  seventy  years. 


It  was  hard  by  her  cottage  that  we  saw  our  first 
mosque,  which  had  begun  by  being  a  Gothic  church, 
but  had  lost  itself  in  paynim  hands  for  centuries,  in 
spite  of  the  lamp  always  kept  burning  in  it.  Then 
one  day  the  Cid  came  riding  by,  and  his  horse,  at  sight 
of  a  white  stone  in  the  street  pavement,  knelt  down 
and  would  not  budge  till  men  came  and  dug  through 
the  wall  of  the  mosque  and  disclosed  this  indefatigable 
lamp  in  the  church.  We  expressed  our  doubt  of  the 
man's  knowing  so  unerringly  that  the  horse  meant  them 
to  dig  through  the  mosque.  "  If  you  can  believe  the 

rest  I  think  you  can  believe  that,"  our  guide  argued. 

137 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

He  was  like  so  many  taciturn  Spaniards,  not  in 
conversable,  and  we  had  a  pleasure  in  his  unobtrusive 
intelligence  which  I  should  be  sorry  to  exaggerate.  He 
supplied  us  with  such  statistics  of  his  city  as  we  brought 
away  with  us,  and  as  I  think  the  reader  may  join  me 
in  trusting,  and  in  regretting  that  I  did  not  ask  more. 
Still  it  is  something  to  have  learned  that  in  Toledo 
now  each  family  lives  English  fashion  in  a  house  of 
its  own,  while  in  the  other  continental  cities  it  mostly 
dwells  in  a  flat.  This  is  because  the  population  has 
fallen  from  two  hundred  thousand  to  twenty  thousand, 
and  the  houses  have  not  shared  its  decay,  but  remain 
habitable  for  numbers  immensely  beyond  those  of  the 
households.  In  the  summer  the  family  inhabits  the 
first  floor  which  the  patio  and  the  subterranean  damp 
from  the  rains  keep  cool:  in  the  winter  it  retreats 
to  the  upper  chambers  which  the  sun  is  supposed  to 
warm,  and  which  are  at  any  rate  dry  even  on  cloudy 
days.  The  rents  would  be  thought  low  in  ~New  York: 
three  dollars  a  month  get  a  fair  house  in  Toledo;  but 
wages  are  low,  too;  three  dollars  a  month  for  a  man 
servant  and  a  dollar  and  a  half  for  a  maid.  If  the 
Toledans  from  high  to  low  are  extravagant  in  anything 
it  is  dress,  but  dress  for  the  outside,  not  the  inside, 
which  does  not  show,  as  our  guide  satirically  explained. 
They  scrimp  themselves  in  food  and  they  pay  the 
penalty  in  lessened  vitality ;  there  is  not  so  much  fever 
as  one  might  think;  but  there  is  a  great  deal  of  con 
sumption  ;  and  as  we  could  not  help  seeing  everywhere 
in  the  streets  there  were  many  blind,  who  seemed  often- 
est  to  have  suffered  from  smallpox.  The  beggars  were 
not  so  well  dressed  as  the  other  classes,  but  I  saw  no 
such  delirious  patchwork  as  at  Burgos.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  were  no  idle  people  who  were  fashionably 

dressed;  no  men  or  women  who  looked  great-world. 

138 


AN    ANCIENT    CORNER    OF    THE    CITY 


A    NIGHT    AND    DAY    IN    TOLEDO 

Perhaps  if  the  afternoon  had  kept  the  sunny  promise 
of  the  forenoon  they  might  have  been  driving  in  the 
Paseo,  a  promenade  which  Toledo  has  like  every  Span 
ish  city ;  but  it  rained  and  we  did  not  stop  at  the  Paseo 
which  looked  so  pleasant. 

The  city,  as  so  many  have  told  and  as  I  hope  the 
reader  will  imagine,  is  a  network  of  winding  and 
crooked  lanes,  which  the  books  say  are  Moorish,  but 
which  are  medieval  like  those  of  every  old  city.  They 
nowhere  lend  themselves  to  walking  for  pleasure,  and 
the  houses  do  not  open  their  patios  to  the  passer  with 
Andalusian  expansiveness ;  they  are  in  fact  of  a  quite 
Oriental  reserve.  I  remember  no  dwellings  of  the 
grade,  quite,  of  hovels ;  but  neither  do  there  seem  to  be 
many  palaces  or  palatial  houses  in  my  hurried  impres 
sion.  Whatever  it  may  be  industrially  or  ecclesiastical 
ly,  Toledo  is  now  socially  provincial  and  tending  to 
extinction.  It  is  so  near  Madrid  that  if  I  myself  were 
living  in  Toledo  I  would  want  to  live  in  Madrid,  and 
only  return  for  brief  sojourns  to  mourn  my  want  of 
a  serious  object  in  life;  at  Toledo  it  must  be  easy  to 
cherish  such  an  object. 

Industrially,  of  course,  one  associates  it  with  the 
manufacture  of  the  famous  Toledo  blades,  which  it  is 
said  are  made  as  wonderful  as  ever,  and  I  had  a  dim 
idea  of  getting  a  large  one  for  decorative  use  in  a 
New  York  flat.  But  the  foundry  is  a  mile  out  of  town, 
and  I  only  got  so  far  as  to  look  at  the  artists  who  en 
grave  the  smaller  sort  in  shops  open  to  the  public  eye ; 
and  my  purpose  dwindled  to  the  purchase  of  a  little 
pair  of  scissors,  much  as  a  high  resolve  for  the  famous 
marchpane  of  Toledo  ended  in  a  piece  of  that  pastry 
about  twice  the  size  of  a  silver  dollar.  Not  all  of  the 
twenty  thousand  people  of  Toledo  could  be  engaged  in 
these  specialties,  and  I  owe  myself  to  blame  for  not 
10  139 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

asking  more  about  the  local  industries ;  but  it  is  not 
too  late  for  the  reader,  whom  I  could  do  no  greater 
favor  than  sending  him  there,  to  repair  my  deficiency. 
In  self-defense  I  urge  my  knowledge  of  a  military 
school  in  the  Alcazar,  where  and  in  the  street  leading 
up  to  it  we  saw  some  companies  of  the  comely  and 
kindly-looking  cadets.  I  know  also  that  there  are  pub 
lic  night  schools  where  those  so  minded  may  study  the 
arts  and  letters,  as  our  guide  was  doing  in  certain 
directions.  Now  that  there  are  no  longer  any  Jews  in 
Toledo,  and  the  Arabs  to  whom  they  betrayed  the  Gothic 
capital  have  all  been  Christians  or  exiles  for  many 
centuries,  we  felt  that  we  represented  the  whole  alien 
element  of  the  place;  there  seemed  to  be  at  least  no 
other  visitors  of  our  lineage  or  language. 

VI 

We  were  going  to  spend  the  rest  of  the  day  driving 
out  through  the  city  into  the  country  beyond  the  Tagus, 
and  we  drove  off  in  our  really  splendid  turnout  through 
swarms  of  beggars  whose  prayers  our  horses'  bells 
drowned  when  we  left  them  to  their  despair  at  the 
hotel  door.  At  the  moment  of  course  we  believe  that 
it  was  a  purely  dramatic  misery  which  the  wretched 
creatures  represented;  but  sometimes  I  have  since  had 
moments  of  remorse  in  which  I  wish  I  had  thrown 
big  and  little  dogs  broadcast  among  them.  They  could 
not  all  have  been  begging  for  the  profit  or  pleasure  of 
it;  some  of  them  were  imaginably  out  of  work  and 
worthily  ragged  as  I  saw  them,  and  hungry  as  I  begin 
to  fear  them.  I  am  glad  now  to  think  that  many  of 
them  could  not  see  with  their  poor  blind  eyes  the  face 
which  I  hardened  against  them,  as  we  whirled  away  to 
the  music  of  our  horses'  bells. 

140 


A    NIGHT    AND    DAY    IN    TOLEDO 

The  bells  pretty  well  covered  our  horses  from  their 
necks  to  their  haunches,  a  pair  of  gallant  grays  urged 
to  their  briskest  pace  by  the  driver  whose  short  square 
face  and  humorous  mouth  and  eyes  were  a  joy  whenever 
we  caught  a  glimpse  of  them.  He  was  one  of  those 
drivers  who  know  everybody;  he  passed  the  time  of 
day  with  all  the  men  we  met,  and  he  had  a  joking  com 
pliment  for  all  the  women,  who  gladdened  at  sight  of 
him  from  the  thresholds  where  they  sat  sewing  or  knit 
ting:  such  a  driver  as  brings  a  gay  world  to  home- 
keeping  souls  and  leaves  them  with  the  feeling  of 
having  been  in  it.  I  would  have  given  much  more 
than  I  gave  the  beggars  in  Toledo  to  know  just  in  what 
terms  he  and  his  universal  acquaintance  bantered  each 
other;  but  the  terms  might  sometimes  have  been  rather 
rank.  Something,  at  any  rate,  qualified  the  air,  which 
I  fancied  softer  than  that  of  Madrid,  with  a  faint 
recurrent  odor,  as  if  in  testimony  of  the  driver's  de 
rivation  from  those  old  rancid  Christians,  as  the  Span 
iards  used  to  call  them,  whose  lineage  had  never  been 
crossed  with  Moorish  blood.  If  it  was  merely  some 
thing  the  carriage  had  acquired  from  the  stable,  still 
it  was  to  be  valued  for  its  distinction  in  a  country 
of  many  smells;  and  I  would  not  have  been  with 
out  it. 

When  we  crossed  the  Tagus  by  a  bridge  which  a 
company  of  workmen  willingly  paused  from  mending 
to  let  us  by,  and  remained  standing  absent-mindedly 
aside  some  time  after  we  had  passed,  we  found  our 
selves  in  a  scene  which  I  do  not  believe  was  ever  sur 
passed  for  spectacularity  in  any  theater.  I  hope  this 
is  not  giving  the  notion  of  something  fictitious  in  it; 
I  only  mean  that  here  Mature  was  in  one  of  her  most 
dramatic  moods.  The  yellow  torrent  swept  through  a 

deep  gorge  of  red  earth,  which  on  the  farther  side 

141 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

climbed  in  precipitous  banks,  cleft  by  enormous  fissures, 
or  chasms  rather,  to  the  wide  plateau  where  the  gray 
city  stood.  The  roofs  of  mellow  tiles  formed  a  suc 
cession  of  levels  from  which  the  irregular  towers  and 
pinnacles  of  the  churches  stamped  themselves  against 
a  sky  now  filled  with  clouds,  but  in  an  air  so  clear 
that  their  beautiful  irregularities  and  differences 
showed  to  one  very  noble  effect.  The  city  still 
looked  the  ancient  capital  of  the  two  hundred  thousand 
souls  it  once  embraced,  and  in  its  stony  repair  there 
was  no  hint  of  decay. 

On  our  right,  the  road  mounted  through  country  wild 
enough  at  times,  but  for  the  most  part  comparatively 
friendly,  with  moments  of  being  almost  homelike. 
There  were  slopes  which,  if  massive  always,  were  some 
times  mild  and  were  gray  with  immemorial  olives.  In 
certain  orchard  nooks  there  were  apricot  trees,  yellowing 
to  the  autumn,  with  red-brown  withered  grasses  tangling 
under  them.  Men  were  gathering  the  fruit  of  the 
abounding  cactuses  in  places,  and  in  one  place  a  peas 
ant  was  bearing  an  arm-load  of  them  to  a  wide  stone 
pen  in  the  midst  of  which  stood  a  lordly  black  pig,  with 
head  lifted  and  staring,  indifferent  to  cactuses,  toward 
Toledo.  His  statuesque  pose  was  of  a  fine  hauteur, 
and  a  more  imaginative  tourist  than  I  might  have 
fancied  him  lost  in  a  dream  of  the  past,  piercing  be 
yond  the  time  of  the  Iberian  autochtons  to  those  pre 
historic  ages 

When  wild  in  woods  the  noble  savage  ran, 

pursuing  or  pursued  by  his  tusked  and  bristled  ancestor, 
and  then  slowly  reverting  through  the  different  in 
vasions  and  civilizations  to  that  signal  moment  when, 
after  three  hundred  Moslem  years,  Toledo  became  Chris 
tian  again  forever,  and  pork  resumed  its  primacy  at 

142 


- 

/ 


A    NIGHT    AND    DAY    IN    TOLEDO 

the  table.  Dark,  mysterious,  fierce,  the  proud  pig 
stood,  a  figure  made  for  sculpture ;  and  if  he  had  been 
a  lion,  with  the  lion's  royal  ideal  of  eating  rather  than 
feeding  the  human  race,  the  reader  would  not  have 
thought  him  unworthy  of  literature;  I  have  seldom 
seen  a  lion  that  looked  worthier  of  it. 

We  must  have  met  farmer-folk,  men  and  women,  on 
our  way  and  have  seen  their  white  houses  farther  or 
nearer.  But  mostly  the  landscape  was  lonely  and  at 
times  nightmarish,  as  the  Castilian  landscape  has  a 
trick  of  being,  and  remanded  us  momently  to  the  awful 
entourage  of  our  run  from  Valladolid  to  Madrid.  We 
were  glad  to  get  back  to  the  Tagus,  which  if  awful  is 
not  grisly,  but  wherever  it  rolls  its  yellow  flood  lends 
the  landscape  such  a  sublimity  that  it  was  no  esthetic 
descent  from  the  high  perch  of  that  proud  pig  to  the 
mighty  gorge  through  which,  geologically  long  ago,  the 
river  had  torn  its  way.  When  we  drove  back  the  bridge- 
menders  stood  aside  for  us  while  we  wrere  yet  far  off, 
and  the  women  came  to  their  doorways  at  the  sound 
of  our  bells  for  another  exchange  of  jokes  with  our 
driver.  By  the  time  a  protracted  file  of  mules  had 
preceded  us  over  the  bridge,  a  brisk  shower  had  come 
up,  and  after  urging  our  grays  at  their  topmost  speed 
toward  the  famous  church  of  San  Juan  de  los  Reyes 
Catolicos,  we  still  had  to  run  from  our  carriage  door 
through  the  rain. 

Happily  the  portal  was  in  the  keeping  of  one  of  those 
authorized  beggars  who  guard  the  gates  of  heaven 
everywhere  in  that  kind  country,  and  he  welcomed 
us  so  eagerly  from  the  wet  that  I  could  not  do  less 
than  give  him  a  big  dog  at  once.  In  a  moment  of  con 
fusion  I  turned  about,  and  taking  him  for  another 
beggar,  I  gave  him  another  big  dog;  and  when  we 

came  out  of  the  church  he  had  put  off  his  cap  and  ar- 

143 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

ranged  so  complete  a  disguise  with  the  red  handker 
chief  bravely  tied  round  his  head,  that  my  innocence 
was  again  abused,  and  once  more  a  big  dog  passed  be 
tween  us.  But  if  the  merit  of  the  church  might  only  be 
partially  attributed  to  him,  he  was  worth  the  whole 
three.  The  merit  of  the  church  was  .incalculable,  for 
it  was  meant  to  be  the  sepulcher  of  the  Catholic  Kings, 
who  were  eventually  more  fitly  buried  in  the  cathedral 
at  Granada,  in  the  heart  of  their  great  conquest;  and 
it  is  a  most  beautiful  church,  of  a  mingled  Saracenic 
plateresque  Gothic,  as  the  guide-books  remind  me,  and 
extravagantly  baroque  as  I  myself  found  it.  I  person 
ally  recall  also  a  sense  of  chill  obscurity  and  of  an  airy 
gallery  wandering  far  aloof  in  the  upper  gloom,  which 
remains  overhead  with  me  still,  and  the  yet  fainter  sense 
of  the  balconies  crowning  like  capitals  the  two  pillars 
fronting  the  high  altar.  I  am  now  sorry  for  our  haste, 
but  one  has  not  so  much  time  for  enjoying  such  churches 
in  their  presence  as  for  regretting  them  in  their  ab 
sence.  One  should  live  near  them,  and  visit  them  daily, 
if  one  would  feel  their  beauty  in  its  recondite  details ; 
to  have  come  three  thousand  miles  for  three  minutes 
of  them  is  no  way  of  making  that  beauty  part  of  one's 
being,  and  I  will  not  pretend  that  I  did  in  this  case. 
What  I  shall  always  maintain  is  that  I  had  a  living 
heartache  from  the  sight  of  that  space  on  the  f agade 
of  this  church  which  is  overhung  with  the  chains  of 
the  Christian  captives  rescued  from  slavery  among  the 
Moors  by  the  Catholic  Kings  in  their  conquest  of 
Granada.  They  were  not  only  the  memorials  of  the 
most  sorrowful  fact,  but  they  represented  the  misery 
of  a  thousand  years  of  warfare  in  which  the  prisoners 
on  either  side  suffered  in  chains  for  being  Moslems  or 
being  Christians.  The  manacles  and  the  fetters  on  the 
church  front  are  merely  decorative  to  the  glance,  but 

144 


A    NIGHT    AND    DAY    IN    TOLEDO 

to  the  eye  that  reads  deeper,  how  structural  in  their 
tale  of  man's  inhumanity  to  man!  How  heavily  they 
had  hung  on  weary  limbs!  H'ow  pitilessly  they  had 
eaten  through  bleeding  ulcers  to  the  bone!  Yet  they 
were  very,  very  decorative,  as  the  flowers  are  that  bloom 
on  battle-fields. 

Even  with  only  a  few  minutes  of  a  scant  quarter- 
hour  to  spare,  I  would  not  have  any  one  miss  seeing 
the  cloister,  from  which  the  Catholic  Kings  used  to  enter 
the  church  by  the  gallery  to  those  balcony  capitals, 
but  which  the  common  American  must  now  see  by  going 
outside  the  church.  The  cloister  is  turned  to  the  uses 
of  an  industrial  school,  as  we  were  glad  to  realize  be 
cause  our  guide,  whom  we  liked  so  much,  was  a  night 
student  there.  It  remains  as  beautiful  and  reverend 
as  if  it  were  of  no  secular  use,  full  of  gentle  sculptures, 
with  a  garden  in  the  middle,  raised  above  the  pave 
ment  with  a  border  of  thin  tiles,  and  flower-pots  stand 
ing  on  their  coping,  all  in  the  shadow  of  tall  trees,  over 
hanging  a  deep  secret-keeping  well.  From  this  place, 
where  you  will  be  partly  sheltered  from  the  rain,  your 
next  profitable  sally  through  the  storm  will  be  to  Santa 
Maria  la  Blanca,  once  the  synagogue  of  the  richest 
Jews  of  Toledo,  but  now  turned  church  in  spite  of  its 
high  authorization  as  a  place  of  Hebrew  worship.  It 
was  permitted  them  to  build  it  because  they  declared 
they  were  of  that  tribe  of  Israel  which,  when  Caiaphas, 
the  High  Priest,  sent  round  to  the  different  tribes  for 
their  vote  whether  Jesus  should  live  or  die,  alone  voted 
that  He  should  live.  Their  response,  as  Theophile 
Gautier  reports  from  the  chronicles,  is  preserved  in 
the  Vatican  with  a  Latin  version  of  the  Hebrew  text. 
The  fable,  if  it  is  a  fable,  has  its  pathos;  and  I  for 
one  can  only  lament  the  religious  zeal  to  which  the 

preaching  of  a  fanatical  monk  roused  the  Christian 

145 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

neighborhood  in  the  fifteenth  century,  to  such  excess 
that  these  kind  Jews  were  afterward  forbidden  their 
worship  in  the  place.  It  is  a  very  clean-looking,  cold- 
looking  white  monument  of  the  Catholic  faith,  with  a 
retablo  attributed  to  Berruguete,  and  much  plateresque 
Gothic  detail  mingled  with  Byzantine  ornament,  and 
Moorish  arabesquing  and  the  famous  stucco  honey 
combing  which  we  were  destined  at  Seville  and  Granada 
to  find  almost  sickeningly  sweet.  Where  the  Rabbis 
read  the  law  from  their  pulpit  the  high  altar  stands, 
and  the  pious  populace  has  for  three  hundred  years 
pushed  the  Jews  from  the  surrounding  streets,  where 
they  had  so  humbled  their  dwellings  to  the  lowliest  lest 
they  should  rouse  the  jealousy  of  their  sleepless  enemies. 

VII 

When  we  had  visited  this  church  there  remained  only 
the  house  of  the  painter  known  as  El  Greco,  for  whom 
we  had  formed  such  a  distaste,  because  of  the  long 
features  of  the  faces  in  his  pictures,  that  our  guide 
could  hardly  persuade  us  his  house  was  worth  seeing. 
Now  I  am  glad  .he  prevailed  with  us,  for  we  have  since 
come  to  find  a  peculiar  charm  in  these  long  features 
and  the  characteristic  coloring  of  El  Greco's  pictures. 
The  little  house  full  of  memorials  and  the  little  garden 
full  of  flowers,  which  ought  to  have  been  all  forget-me- 
nots,  were  entirely  delightful.  As  every  one  but  I 
knew,  and  even  I  now  know,  he  was  born  a  Greek 
with  the  name  of  Theotocopuli,  and  studied  under 
Titian  till  he  found  his  account  in  a  manner  of  his 
own,  making  long  noses  and  long  chins  and  high  nar 
row  foreheads  in  ashen  gray,  and  at  last  went  mad  in 
the  excess  of  his  manner.  The  house  has  been  restored 

by  the  Marquis  de  la  Vega,  according  to  his  notion  of 

146 


A    NIGHT    AND    DAY    IN    TOLEDO 

an  old  Spanish  house,  and  has  the  pleasantest  small 
patio  in  the  world,  looked  down  into  from  a  carved 
wooden  gallery,  with  a  pavement  of  red  tiles  inter  set 
with  Moorish  tiles  of  divers  colors.  There  are  inter 
esting  pictures  everywhere,  and  on  one  wall  the  cer 
tificate  of  the  owner's  membership  in  the  Hispanic 
Society  of  America,  which  made  me  feel  at  home  be 
cause  it  was  signed  with  the  name  of  an  American 
friend  of  mine,  who  is  repressed  by  prosperity  from 
being  known  as  a  poet  and  one  of  the  first  Spanish 
scholars  of  any  time. 

The  whole  place  is  endearingly  homelike  and  so  gen 
uinely  hospitable  that  we  almost  sat  down  to  luncheon 
in  the  kitchen  with  the  young  Spanish  king  who  had 
lunched  with  the  Marquis  there  a  few  weeks  before. 
There  was  a  veranda  outside  where  we  could  linger 
till  the  rain  held  up,  and  look  into  the  garden  where 
the  flowers  ought  to  have  been  forget-me-nots,  but  were 
as  usual  mostly  marigolds  and  zinnias.  They  crowded 
round  tile-edged  pools,  and  other  flowers  bloomed  in 
pots  on  the  coping  of  the  garden-seats  built  up  of  thin 
tiles  carved  on  their  edges  to  an  inward  curve.  It  is 
strongly  believed  that  there  are  several  stories  under 
the  house,  and  the  Marquis  is  going  some  day  to  dig 
them  up  or  out  to  the  last  one  where  the  original  Jew 
ish  owner  of  the  house  is  supposed  to  have  hid  his 
treasure.  In  the  mean  time  we  could  look  across  the 
low  wall  that  belted  the  garden  in,  to  a  vacant  ground 
a  little  way  off  where  some  boys  were  playing  with  a 
wagon  they  had  made.  They  had  made  it  out  of  an 
oblong  box,  with  wheels  so  rudely  and  imperfectly 
rounded,  that  they  wabbled  fearfully  and  at  times 
gave  way  under  the  body;  just  as  they  did  with  the 
wagons  that  the  boys  I  knew  seventy  years  ago  used  to 
make. 

147 


FAMILIAK  SPANISH  TKAVELS 

I  became  so  engrossed  in  the  spectacle,  so  essentially 
a  part  of  the  drama,  that  I  did  not  make  due  account 
of  some  particulars  of  the  subterranean  six  stories  of 
El  Greco's  house.  There  must  have  been  other  things 
worth  seeing  in  Toledo,  thousands  of  others,  and  some 
others  we  saw,  but  most  we  missed,  and  many  I  do  not 
remember.  It  was  now  coming  the  hour  to  leave 
Toledo,  and  we  drove  back  to  our  enchanted  castle  for 
our  bill,  and  for  the  omnibus  to  the  station.  I  thought 
for  some  time  that  there  was  no  charge  for  the  fire,  or 
even  the  smoke  we  had  the  night  before,  but  my  eyes 
were  holden  from  the  item  which  I  found  later,  by 
seeing  myself  addressed  as  Milor.  I  had  never  been 
addressed  as  a  lord  in  any  bill  before,  but  I  reflected 
that  in  the  proud  old  metropolis  of  the  Goths  I  could 
not  be  saluted  as  less,  and  I  gladly  paid  the  bill,  which 
observed  a  golden  mean  between  cheapness  and  dear- 
ness,  and  we  parted  good  friends  with  our  host,  and 
better  with  our  guide,  who  at  the  last  brought  out  an 
English  book,  given  him  by  an  English  friend,  about 
the  English  cathedrals.  He  was  fine,  and  I  could  not 
wish  any  future  traveler  kinder  fortune  than  to  have 
his  guidance  in  Toledo.  Some  day  I  am  going  back 
to  profit  more  fully  by  it,  and  to  repay  him  the  vari 
ous  fees  which  he  disbursed  for  me  to  different  door 
keepers  and  custodians  and  which  I  forgot  at  parting 
and  he  was  too  delicate  to  remind  me  of. 

When  all  leaves  were  taken  and  we  were  bowed  out 
and  away  our  horses,  covered  with  bells,  burst  with  the 
omnibus  through  a  solid  mass  of  beggars  come  to  give 
us  a  last  chance  of  meriting  heaven  by  charity  to  them, 
and  dashed  down  the  hill  to  the  station.  There  we  sat 
a  long  half -hour  in  the  wet  evening  air,  wondering  how 
we  had  been  spared  seeing  those  wretches  trampled  un 
der  our  horses'  feet,  or  how  the  long  train  of  goats 

148 


A    NIGHT    AND    DAY    IN    TOLEDO 

climbing  to  the  city  to  be  milked  escaped  our  wheels. 
But  as  we  were  guiltless  of  inflicting  either  disaster, 
we  could  watch  with  a  good  conscience  the  quiescent 
industry  of  some  laborers  in  the  brickyard  beyond  the 
track.  Slowly  and  more  slowly  they  worked,  wearily, 
apathetically,  fetching,  carrying,  in  their  divided 
skirts  of  cross-barred  stuff  of  a  rich  Velasquez  dirt 
color.  One  was  especially  worthy  of  admiration  from 
his  wide-brimmed  black  hat  and  his  thoughtful  indif 
ference  to  his  task,  which  was  stacking  up  a  sort  of 
bundles  of  long  grass;  but  I  dare  say  he  knew  what 
it  all  meant.  Throughout  I  was  tormented  by  ques 
tion  of  the  precise  co-racial  quality  of  some  English- 
speaking  folk  who  had  come  to  share  our  bone-breaking 
return  to  Madrid  in  the  train  so  deliberately  waiting 
there  to  begin  afflicting  us.  English  English  they  cer 
tainly  were  not;  American  English  as  little.  If  they 
were  Australian  English,  why  should  not  it  have  been 
a  convention  of  polite  travel  for  them  to  come  up  and 
say  so,  and  save  us  that  torment  of  curiosity  ?  But  per 
haps  they  were  not  Australians. 


VII 
THE  GEEAT  GKIDIKON  OF  ST.  LAWRENCE 

IT  seems  a  duty  every  Protestant  owes  his  heresy 
to  go  and  see  how  dismally  the  arch-enemy  of  heresy 
housed  his  true  faith  in  the  palace-tomb-and-church  of 
the  Escorial.  If  the  more  light-minded  tourist  shirks 
this  act  of  piety,  he  makes  a  mistake  which  he  will 
repent  afterward  in  vain.  The  Escorial  is,  for  its 
plainness,  one  of  the  two  or  three  things  worthiest  see 
ing  among  the  two  or  three  hundred  things  worth  seeing 
in  Spain.  Yet  we  feigned  meaning  to  miss  it  after 
we  returned  to  Madrid  from  Toledo,  saying  that  every 
body  went  to  the  Escorial  and  that  it  would  be  a  proud 
distinction  not  to  go.  All  the  time  we  knew  we  should 
go,  and  we  were  not  surprised  when  we  were  chosen 
by  one  of  our  few  bright  days  for  the  excursion,  though 
we  were  taken  inordinately  early,  and  might  well  have 
been  started  a  little  later. 


Nothing  was  out  of  the  common  on  the  way  to  the 
station,  and  our  sense  of  the  ordinary  was  not  relieved 
when  we  found  ourselves  in  a  car  of  the  American 
open-saloon  pattern,  well  filled  with  other  Americans 
bent  upon  the  same  errand  as  ourselves;  though  I  am 
bound  to  say  that  the  backs  of  the  transverse  seats 

150 


TPIE    GREAT    GRIDIRON    OF    ST.   LAWRENCE 

rose  well  toward  the  roof  of  the  car  with  a  certain 
originality. 

When  we  cleared  the  city  streets  and  houses,  we  be 
gan  running  out  into  the  country  through  suburbs  vul 
garly  gay  with  small,  bright  brick  villas,  so  expressive 
of  commuting  that  the  eye  required  the  vision  of  young 
husbands  and  fathers  going  in  at  the  gates  with  garden 
ing  tools  on  their  shoulders  and  under  their  arms.  To 
be  sure,  the  time  of  day  and  the  time  of  year  were 
against  this ;  it  was  now  morning  and  autumn,  though 
there  was  a  vernal  brilliancy  in  the  air;  and  the  grass, 
flattered  by  the  recent  rains,  was  green  where  we  had 
last  seen  it  gray.  Along  a  pretty  stream,  which,  for 
all  I  know  may  have  been  the  Manzanares,  it  was  so 
little,  files  of  Lombardy  poplars  followed  away  very 
agreeably  golden  in  foliage ;  and  scattered  about  were 
deciduous-looking  evergreens  which  we  questioned  for 
live-oaks.  We  were  going  northward  over  the  track 
which  had  brought  us  southward  to  Madrid  two  weeks 
before,  and  by  and  by  the  pleasant  levels  broke  into 
rough  hills  and  hollows,  strewn  with  granite  boulders 
which,  as  our  train  mounted,  changed  into  the  savage 
rock  masses  of  ~New  Castile,  and  as  we  drew  near  the 
village  of  Escorial  gave  the  scene  the  look  of  that  very 
desolate  country.  But  it  could  not  be  so  gloomy  in  the 
kind  sunlight  as  it  was  when  lashed  by  the  savage 
storm  which  we  had  seen  it  cowering  under  before ;  and 
at  the  station  we  lost  all  feeling  of  friendlessness  in  the 
welcome  of  the  thronging  guides  and  hotel  touters. 

Our  ideal  was  a  carriage  which  we  could  keep 
throughout  the  day  and  use  for  our  return  to  the 
train  in  the  afternoon;  and  this  was  so  exactly  the 
ideal  of  a  driver  to  whom  we  committed  ourselves  that 
we  were  somewhat  surprised  to  have  his  vehicle  develop 
into  a  motor-omnibus,  and  himself  into  a  conductor. 

151 


FAMILIAK  SPANISH  TKAVELS 

When  we  arrived  at  the  palace  some  miles  off,  up  a 
winding  way,  he  underwent  another  change,  and  became 
our  guide  to  the  Escorial.  In  the  event  he  proved  a 
very  intelligent  guide,  as  guides  go,  and  I  really  can 
not  now  see  how  we  could  have  got  on  without  him. 
He  adapted  the  Spanish  names  of  things  to  our  Eng 
lish  understanding  by  shortening  them ;  a  patio  became 
a  pat',  and  an  old  master  an  old  mast' ;  'and  an  endear 
ing  quality  was  imparted  to  the  grim  memory  of  Philip 
II.  by  the  diminutive  of  Philly.  We  accepted  this,  but 
even  to  have  Charles  V.  brought  nearer  our  hearts  as 
Charley  Eif,  we  could  not  bear  to  have  our  guide  ex 
posed  to  the  mockery  of  less  considerate  travelers.  I 
instructed  him  that  the  emperor's  name  was  Charles, 
and  that  only  boys  and  very  familiar  friends  of  that 
name  were  called  Charley  among  us.  He  thanked  me, 
and  at  once  spoke  again  of  Charley  Eif ;  which  I  after 
ward  found  was  the  universally  accepted  style  of  the 
great  emperor  among  the  guides  of  Spain.  In  vain  I 
tried  to  persuade  them  out  of  it  at  Cordova,  at  Seville, 
at  Granada,  and  wherever  else  they  had  to  speak  of 
an  emperor  whose  memory  really  seems  to  pervade  the 
whole  land. 


The  genuine  village  of  Escorial  lies  mostly  to  the 
left  of  the  station,  but  the  artificial  town  which  grew 
up  with  the  palace  is  to  the  right.  Both  are  called 
after  the  slag  of  the  iron-smelting  works  which  were 
and  are  the  vital  industry  of  the  first  Escorial;  but 
the  road  to  the  palace  takes  you  far  from  the  slag,  with 
a  much-hoteled  and  garden-walled  dignity,  to  the 
plateau,  apparently  not  altogether  natural,  where  the 
massive  triune  edifice  stands  in  the  keeping  of  a  throng 

152 


THE    GKEAT    GRIDIRON    OF    ST.   LAWRENCE 

of  American  women  wondering  how  they  are  going  to 
see  it,  and  lunch,  and  get  back  to  their  train  in  time. 
Many  were  trying,  the  day  of  our  visit,  to  see  the  place 
with  no  help  but  that  of  their  bewildering  Baedekers, 
and  we  had  constant  reason  to  be  glad  of  our  guide 
as  we  met  or  passed  them  in  the  measureless  courts  and 
endless  corridors. 

At  this  distance  of  time  and  place  we  seem  to  have 
hurried  first  to  the  gorgeous  burial  vault  where  the 
kings  and  queens  of  Spain  lie,  each  one  shut  in  a  gilded 
marble  sarcophagus  in  their  several  niches  of  the  cir 
cular  chamber,  where  under  the  high  altar  of  the  church 
they  have  the  advantage  of  all  the  masses  said  above 
them.  But  on  the  way  we  must  have  passed  through 
the  church,  immense,  bare,  cold,  and  sullener  far  than 
that  sepulcher;  and  I  am  sure  that  we  visited  last  of 
all  the  palace,  where  it  is  said  the  present  young  king 
comes  so  seldom  and  unwillingly,  as  if  shrinking  from 
the  shelf  appointed  for  him  in  that  crypt  shining  with 
gold  and  polished  marble. 

It  is  of  death,  not  life,  that  the  Escorial  preaches, 
and  it  was  to  eternal  death,  its  pride  and  gloom,  and 
not  life  everlasting,  that  the  dark  piety  of  Philip  vol 
untarily,  or  involuntarily,  consecrated  the  edifice.  But 
it  would  be  doing  a  wrong  to  one  of  the  greatest  achieve 
ments  of  the  human  will,  if  one  dwelt  too  much,  or  too 
wholly,  upon  this  gloomy  ideal.  The  Escorial  has  been 
many  times  described ;  I  myself  forbear  with  difficulty 
the  attempt  to  describe  it,  and  I  satisfy  my  longing  to 
set  it  visibly  before  the  reader  by  letting  an  earlier 
visitor  of  my  name  describe  it  for  me.  I  think  he  does 
it  larger  justice  than  modern  observers,  because  he 
escapes  the  cumulative  obligation  which  time  has  laid 
upon  them  to  find  the  subjective  rather  than  the  ob 
jective  fulfilment  of  its  founder's  intention  in  it.  At 

153 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

any  rate,  in  March,  1623,  James  Howell,  waiting  as 
secretary  of  the  romantic  mission  the  bursting  of  the 
iridescent  love-dream  which  had  brought  Charles  Stuart, 
Prince  of  Wales,  from  England  to  WTOO  the  sister  of  the 
Spanish  king  in  Madrid,  had  leisure  to  write  one  of  his 
most  delightful  "  familiar  letters  "  concerning  the  Esco- 
rial  to  a  friend  in  London. 

"  I  was  yesterday  at  the  Escorial  to  see  the  monastery 
of  St.  Lawrence,  the  eighth  wonder  of  the  world;  and 
truly  considering  the  site  of  the  place,  the  state  of 
the  thing,  the  symmetry  of  the  structure,  with  diverse 
other  rareties,  it  may  be  called  so;  for  what  I  have 
seen  in  Italy  and  other  places  are  but  baubles  to  it. 
It  is  built  among  a  company  of  craggy  hills,  which 
makes  the  air  the  hungrier  and  wholesomer;  it  is 
all  built  of  freestone  and  marble,  and  that  with  such 
solidity  and  moderate  height  that  surely  Philip  the 
Second's  chief  design  was  to  make  a  sacrifice  of  it  to 
eternity,  and  to  contest  with  the  meteors  and  time  it 
self.  It  cost  eight  millions;  it  was  twenty-four  years 
abuilding,  and  the  founder  himself  saw  it  furnished 
and  enjoyed  it  twelve  years  after,  and  carried, his  bones 
himself  thither  to  be  buried.  The  reason  that  moved 
King  Philip  to  waste  so  much  treasure  was  a  vow  he 
had  made  at  the  battle  of  St.  Quentin,  where  he  was 
forced  to  batter  a  monastery  of  St.  Lawrence  friars, 
and  if  he  had  the  victory  he  would  erect  such  a  monu 
ment  to  St.  Lawrence  that  the  world  had  not  the  like ; 
therefore  the  form  of  it  is  like  a  gridiron,  tHe  Handle 
is  a  huge  royal  palace,  and  the  body  a  vast  monastery 
or  assembly  of  quadrangular  cloisters,  for  there  are 
as  many  as  there  be  months  of  the  year.  There  be  a 
hundred  monks,  and  every  one  hath  his  man  and  his 
mule,  and  a  multitude  of  officers;  besides  there  are 
three  libraries  there  full  of  the  choicest  books  for  all 

154 


Copyright  by  Underwood  &  Underwood 

THE    TOWN    AND    MONASTERY    OF   ESCORIAL 


THE    GEEAT     GRIDIRON    OF    ST.   LAWRENCE 

sciences.  It  is  beyond  all  expression  what  grots,  gar 
dens,  walks,  and  aqueducts  there  are  there,  and  what 
curious  fountains  in  the  upper  cloisters,  for  there  be 
two  stages  of  cloisters.  In  fine,  there  is  nothing  that  is 
vulgar  there.  To  take  a  view  of  every  room  in  the 
house  one  must  make  account  to  go  ten  miles ;  there  is 
a  vault  called  the  Pantheon  under  the  high  altar,  which 
is  all  paved,  walled,  and  arched  with  marble;  there  be 
a  number  of  huge  silver  candlesticks  taller  than  I  am ; 
lamps  three  yards  compass,  and  diverse  chalices  and 
crosses  of  massive  gold ;  there  is  one  choir  made  all  of 
burnished  brass;  pictures  and  statues  like  giants;  and 
a  world  of  glorious  things  that  purely  ravished  me.  By 
this  mighty  monument  it  may  be  inferred  that  Philip 
the  Second,  though  he  was  a  little  man,  yet  he  had 
vast  gigantic  thoughts  in  him,  to  leave  such  a  huge 
pile  for  posterity  to  gaze  upon  and  admire  in  his 
memory." 


ni 


Perhaps  this  description  is  riot  very  exact,  but  pre 
cision  of  statement  is  not  to  be  expected  of  a  Welsh 
man;  and  if  Ilowell  preferred  to  say  Philip  built  the 
place  in  fulfilment  of  that  vow  at  the  battle  of  St. 
Quentin,  doubtless  he  believed  it;  many  others  did; 
it  has  only  of  late  been  discovered  that  Philip  was 
not  at  St.  Quentin,  and  did  not  "  batter  a  monastery 
of  St.  Lawrence  friars  "  there.  I  like  to  think  the  rest 
is  all  as  Ilowell  says  down  to  the  man  and  mule  for 
every  monk.  If  there  are  no  men  and  mules  left,  there 
are  very  few  monks  either,  after  the  many  suppressions 
of  convents.  The  gardens  are  there  of  an  unquestion 
able  symmetry  and  beauty,  and  the  "  company  of  craggy 
hills  "  abides  all  round  the  prodigious  edifice,  which  is 

11  155 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

at  once  so  prodigious,  and  grows  larger  upon  you  in 
the  retrospect. 

~Now  that  I  am  this  good  distance  away,  and  can 
not  bring  myself  to  book  by  a  second  experience,  I  feel 
it  safe  to  say  that  I  had  a  feeling  of  St.  Peter's-like 
immensity  in  the  church  of  the  Escorial,  with  more  than 
St.  Peter's-like  bareness.  The  gray  colorlessness  of  the 
architectune  somberly  prevails  in  memory  over  the 
frescoes  of  the  painters  invited  to  relieve  it  in  the 
roof  and  the  retablo,  and  thought  turns  from  the  red- 
and-yellow  jasper  of  altar  and  pulpit,  and  the  bronze- 
gilt  effigies  of  kneeling  kings  and  queens  to  that  niche 
near  the  oratory  where  the  little  terrible  man  who  im 
agined  and  realized  it  all  used  to  steal  in  from  his 
palace,  and  worship  next  the  small  chamber  where  at 
last  he  died.  It  is  said  he  also  read  despatches  and 
state  papers  in  this  nook,  but  doubtless  only  in  the 
intervals  of  devotion. 

Every  one  to  his  taste,  even  in  matters  of  religion; 
Philip  reared  a  temple  to  the  life  beyond  this,  and  as 
if  with  the  splendor  of  the  mausoleum  which  it  en 
shrines  he  hoped  to  overcome  the  victorious  grave;  the 
Caliph  who  built  the  mighty  mosque  at  Cordova,  which 
outlasts  every  other  glory  of  his  capital,  dedicated  it  to 
the  joy  of  this  life  as  against  the  gloom  of  whose  who 
would  have  put  it  under  the  feet  of  death.  "  Let  us 
build,"  he  said  to  his  people,  "  the  Kaaba  of  the  West 
upon  the  site  of  a  Christian  temple,  which  we  will 
destroy,  so  that  we  may  set  forth  how  the  Cross  shall 
fall  and  become  abased  before  the  True  Prophet.  Allah 
will  never  place  the  world  beneath  the  feet  of  those 
who  make  themselves  the  slaves  of  drink  and  sensuality 
while  they  preach  penitence  and  the  joys  of  chastity, 
and  while  extolling  poverty  enrich  themselves  to  the 

loss  of  their  neighbors.     For  these  the  sad  and  silent 

156 


THE    GKEAT    GKIDIKON    OF    ST.   LAWKENCE 

cloister;  for  us,  the  crystalline  fountain  and  the  shady 
grove ;  for  them,  the  rude  and  unsocial  life  of  dungeon- 
like  strongholds;  for  us,  the  charm  of  social  life  and 
culture;  for  them,  intolerance  and  tyranny;  for  us,  a 
ruler  who  is  our  father ;  for  them,  the  darkness  of  igno 
rance  ;  for  us,  letters  and  instruction  as  wide-spread  as 
our  creed;  for  them,  the  wilderness,  celibacy,  and  the 
doom  of  the  false  martyr ;  for  us,  plenty,  love,  brother 
hood,  and  eternal  joy." 

In  spite  of  the  somewhat  vaunting  spirit  of  his  ap 
peal,  the  wager  of  battle  decided  against  the  Arab; 
it  was  the  Crescent  that  fell,  the  Cross  that  prevailed ; 
in  the  very  heart  of  Abderrahman's  mosque  a  Christian 
cathedral  rises.  Yet  in  the  very  heart  of  Philip's 
temple  to  the  spirit  of  the  cloister,  the  desert,  the 
martyrdom,  one  feels  that  a  great  deal  could  be  said 
on  Abderrahman's  side.  This  is  a  world  which  will 
not  be  renounced,  in  fact,  and  even  in  Christian  Spain 
it  has  triumphed  in  the  arts  and  sciences  beyond  its 
earlier  victories  in  Moslem  Spain.  One  finds  Philip 
himself,  with  his  despatches  in  that  high  nook,  rather 
than  among  the  bronze-gilt  royalties  at  the  high  altar, 
though  his  statue  is  duly  there  with  those  of  his  three 
wives.  The  group  does  not  include  that  poor  Bloody 
Mary  of  England,  who  should  have  been  the  fourth 
there,  for  surely  she  suffered  enough  for  his  faith  and 
him  to  be  of  his  domestic  circle  forever. 


IV 

IT  is  the  distinct  merit  of  the  Escorial  that  it  does 
not,  and  perhaps  cannot  take  long  in  doing;  otherwise 
the  doer  could  not  bear  it.  A  look  round  the  sumptu 
ous  burial  chamber  of  the  sovereigns  below  the  high' 
altar  of  the  church;  a  glance  at  the  lesser  sepulchral 

157 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

glories  of  the  infantes  and  infantas  in  their  chapels  and 
corridors,  suffices  for  the  funereal  third  of  the  trinity 
of  tomb  and  temple  and  palace;  and  though  there  are 
gayer  constituents  of  the  last,  especially  the  gallery  of 
the  chapter-house,  with  its  surprisingly  lively  frescoes 
and  its  sometimes  startling  canvases,  there  is  not  much 
that  need  really  keep  you  from  the  royal  apartments 
which  seem  the  natural  end  of  your  visit.  Of  these 
something  better  can  be  said  than  that  they  are  no 
worse  than  most  other  royal  apartments ;  our  guide  led 
us  to  them  through  many  granite  courts  and  corridors 
where  we  left  groups  of  unguided  Americans  still 
maddening  over  their  Baedekers;  and  we  found  them 
hung  with  pleasing  tapestries,  some  after  such  designs 
of  Goya's  as  one  finds  in  the  basement  of  the  Prado. 
The  furniture  was  in  certain  rooms  cheerily  upholstered 
in  crimson  and  salmon  without  sense  of  color,  but  as  if 
seeking  relief  from  the  gray  of  the  church;  and  there 
are  battle-pieces  on  the  walls,  fights  between  Moors  and 
Christians,  which  interested  me.  The  dignified  consid 
eration  of  the  custodian  who  showed  us  through  the 
apartments  seemed  to  have  adapted  to  our  station  a 
manner  left  over  from  the  infrequent  presence  of 
royalty;  as  I  have  said,  the  young  king  of  Spain  does 
not  like  coming  to  the  J]scorial. 

I  do  not  know  why  any  one  comes  there,  and  I  search 
my  consciousness  in  vain  for  a  better  reason  than  the 
feeling  that  I  must  come,  or  would  be  sorrier  if  I  did 
not  than  if  I  did.  The  worthy  Howell  does  not  com 
mit  himself  to  any  expression  of  rejoicing  or  regretting 
in  having  done  the  Escorial.  But  the  good  Theophile 
Gautier,  who  visited  the  place  more  than  two  hundred 
years  after,  owns  frankly  that  he  is  "  excessively  em 
barrassed  in  giving  his  opinion  "  of  it.  "  So  many 

people,"  he  says,  "  serious  and  well-conditioned,  who,  I 

158 


THE   GEEAT   GRIDIRON   OF    ST.   LA  WHENCE 

prefer  to  think,  have  never  seen  it,  have  spoken  of  it  as 
a  chef  d'oeuvre,  and  a  supreme  effort  of  the  human 
spirit,  so  that  I  should  have  the  air,  poor  devil  of  a 
facilletoniste  errant,  of  wishing  to  play  the  original 
and  taking  pleasure  in  my  contrary-mindedness ;  but 
still  in  my  soul  and  conscience  I  cannot  help  finding 
the  Escorial  the  most  tiresome  and  the  most  stupid 
monument  that  could  be  imagined,  for  the  mortification 
of  his  fellow-beings,  by  a  morose  monk  and  a  suspicious 
tyrant.  I  know  very  well  that  the  Escorial  had  a 
serious  and  religious  aim;  but  gravity  is  not  dryness, 
melancholy  is  not  marasm,  meditation  is  not  ennui,  and 
beauty  of  forms  can  always  be  happily  wedded  to 
elevation  of  ideas. "  This  is  the  Frenchman's  language 
as  he  goes  into  the  Escorial;  he  does  not  cheer  up  as 
he  passes  through  the  place,  and  when  he  comes  out 
he  has  to  say :  "  I  issued  from  that  desert  of  granite, 
from  that  monkish  necropolis  with  an  extraordinary 
feeling  of  release,  of  exultation ;  it  seemed  to  me  I  was 
born  into  life  again,  that  I  could  be  young  once  more, 
and  rejoice  in  the  creation  of  the  good  God,  of  which 
I  had  lost  all  hope  in  those  funeral  vaults.  The  bland 
and  luminous  air  wrapt  me  round  like  a  soft  robe  of 
fine  wool,  and  warmed  my  body  frozen  in  that  cadaver 
ous  atmosphere;  I  was  saved  from  that  architectural 
nightmare,  which  I  thought  never  would  end.  I  ad 
vise  people  who  are  so  fatuous  as  to  pretend  that  they 
are  ever  bored  to  go  and  spend  three  or  four  days  in 
the  Escorial;  they  will  learn  what  real  ennui  is  and 
they  will  enjoy  themselves  all  the  rest  of  their  lives 
in  reflecting  that  they  might  be  in  the  Escorial  and 
that  they  are  not.77 

That  was  well  toward  a  century  ago.    It  is  not  quite 
like  that  now,  but  it  is  something  like  it ;  the  human  race 

has  become  inured  to  the  Escorial;  more  tourists  have 

159 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

visited  the  place  and  imaginably  lightened  its  burden 
by  sharing  it  among  their  increasing  number.  Still 
there  is  now  and  then  one  who  is  oppressed,  crushed  by 
it,  and  cannot  relieve  himself  in  such  ironies  as 
Gautier's,  but  must  cry  aloud  in  suffering  like  that 
of  the  more  emotional  De  Amicis :  "  You  approach  a 
courtyard  and  say,  '  I  have  seen  this  already/  ~No. 
You  are  mistaken;  it  is  another.  .  .  .  You  ask  the 
guide  where  the  cloister  is  and  he  replies,  '  This  is  it/ 
and  you  walk  on  for  half  an  hour.  You  see  the  light 
of  another  world:  you  have  never  seen  just  such  a 
light;  is  it  the  reflection  from  the  stone,  or  does  it 
come  from  the  moon?  !N"o,  it  is  daylight,  but  sadder 
than  darkness.  As  you  go  on  from  corridor  to  corridor, 
from  court  to  court,  you  look  ahead  with  misgivings, 
expecting  to  see  suddenly,  as  you  turn  a  corner,  a  row 
of  skeleton  monks  with  hoods  over  their  eyes  and  crosses 
in  their  hands;  you  think  of  Philip  II.  ...  You  re 
member  all  that  you  have  read  about  him,  of  his  terrors 
and  the  Inquisition;  and  everything  becomes  clear  to 
your  mind's  eye  with  a  sudden  light ;  for  the  first  time 
you  understand  it  all;  the  Escorial  is  Philip  II.  ... 
He  is  still  there  alive  and  terrible,  with  the  image  of 
his  dreadful  God.  .  .  .  Even  now,  after  so  long  a  time, 
on  rainy  days,  when  I  am  feeling  sad,  I  think  of  the 
Escorial,  and  then  look  at  the  walls  of  my  room  and 
congratulate  myself.  ...  I  see  again  the  courtyards  of 
the  Escorial.  ...  I  dream  of  wandering  through  the 
corridors  alone  in  the  dark,  followed  by  the  ghost  of  an 
old  friar,  crying  and  pounding  at  all  the  doors  without 
finding  a  way  of  escape." 


I  am  of  another  race  both  from  the  Frenchman  and 

the  Italian,  and  I  cannot  pretend  to  their  experiences, 

160 


Copyright  by  Underwood  &  Underwood 

THE  PANTHEON  OF  THE  KINGS  AND  QUEENS  OF  SPAIN,  UNDER  THE  HIGH 
ALTAR    OF    THE    CHURCH,    ESCORIAL 


THE    GKEAT    GRIDIKON    OF    ST.   LAWKENCE 

their  inferences,  and  their  conclusions;  but  I  am  not 
going  to  leave  the  Escorial  to  the  reader  without  try 
ing  to  make  him  feel  that  I  too  was  terribly  impressed 
by  it.  To  be  sure,  I  had  some  light  moments  in  it, 
because  when  gloom  goes  too  far  it  becomes  ridiculous ; 
and  I  did  think  the  convent  gardens  as  I  saw  them  from 
the  chapter-house  window  were  beautiful,  and  the  hills 
around  majestic  and  serious,  with  no  intention  of  fall 
ing  upon  my  prostrate  spirit.  Yes,  and  after  a  lifelong 
abhorrence  of  that  bleak  king  who  founded  the  Escorial, 
I  will  own  that  I  am,  through  pity,  beginning  to  feel 
an  affection  for  Philip  II. ;  perhaps  I  was  finally 
wrought  upon  by  hearing  him  so  endearingly  called 
Philly  by  our  guide. 

Yet  I  will  not  say  but  I  was  glad  to  get  out  of  the 
Escorial  alive;  and  that  I  welcomed  even  the  sulkiness 
of  the  landlord  of  the  hotel  where  our  guide  took  us 
for  lunch.  To  this  day  I  do  not  know  why  that  land 
lord  should  have  been  so  sour;  his  lunch  was  bad,  but 
I  paid  his  price  without  murmuring ;  and  still  at  part 
ing  he  could  scarcely  restrain  his  rage;  the  Escorial 
might  have  entered  into  his  soul.  On  the  way  to  his 
hotel  the  street  was  empty,  but  the  house  bubbled  over 
with  children  who  gaped  giggling  at  his  guests  from 
the  kitchen  door,  and  were  then  apparently  silenced 
with  food,  behind  it.  There  were  a  great  many  flies 
in  the  hotel,  and  if  I  could  remember  its  name  I  would 
warn  the  public  against  it. 

After  lunch  our  guide  lapsed  again  to  our  con 
ductor  and  reappeared  with  his  motor-bus  and  took 
us  to  the  station,  where  he  overcame  the  scruples  of 
the  lady  in  the  ticket-office  concerning  our  wish  to  re 
turn  to  Madrid  by  the  Sud-Express  instead  of  the 
ordinary  train.  The  trouble  was  about  the  supple 
mentary  fare  which  we  easily  paid  on  board;  in  fact, 

161 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

there  is  never  any  difficulty  in  paying  a  supplementary 
fare  in  Spain ;  the  authorities  meet  you  quite  half-way. 
But  we  were  nervous  because  we  had  already  suffered 
from  the  delays  of  people  at  the  last  hotel  where  our 
motor-bus  stopped  to  take  up  passengers ;  they  lingered 
so  long  over  lunch  that  we  were  sure  we  should  miss 
the  Sud-Express,  and  we  did  not  see  how  we  could 
live  in  Escorial  till  the  way-train  started;  yet  for  all 
their  delays  we  reached  the  station  in  time  and  more. 
The  train  seemed  strangely  reduced  in  the  number  of 
its  cars,  but  we  confidently  started  with  others  to  board 
the  nearest  of  them;  there  we  were  waved  violently 
away,  and  bidden  get  into  the  dining-car  at  the  rear  of 
the  train.  In  some  dudgeon  we  obeyed,  but  we  were 
glad  to  get  away  from  Escorial  on  any  terms,  and  the 
dining-car  was  not  bad,  though  it  had  a  somewhat 
disheveled  air.  We  could  only  suppose  that  all  the 
places  in  the  two  other  cars  were  taken,  and  we  re 
signed  ourselves  to  choosing  the  least  coffee-stained  of 
the  coffee-stained  tables  and  ordered  more  coffee  at  it. 
The  waiter  brought  it  as  promptly  as  the  conductor 
collected  our  supplementary  fare ;  he  even  made  a  feint 
of  removing  the  stains  from  our  table-cloth  with  a 
flourish  of  his  napkin,  and  then  he  left  us  to  our  con 
jectures  and  reflections  till  he  came  for  his  pay  and 
his  fee  just  before  we  ran  into  Madrid. 


VI 


The  mystery  persisted  and  it  was  only  when  our 
train  paused  in  the  station  that  it  was  solved.  There, 
as  we  got  out  of  our  car,  we  perceived  that  a  broad 
red  velvet  carpet  was  laid  from  the  car  in  front  into  the 

station ;  a  red  carpet  such  as  is  used  to  keep  the  feet  of 

162 


THE    GEEAT    GRIDIRON    OF    ST.   LAWRENCE 

distinguished  persons  from  their  native  earth  the  world 
over,  but  more  especially  in  Europe.  Along  this  carpet 
were  loosely  grouped  a  number  of  solemnly  smiling 
gentlemen  in  frock-coats  with  their  top-hats  genteelly 
resting  in  the  hollows  of  their  left  arms,  and  without 
and  beyond  the  station  in  the  space  usually  filled  by 
closed  and  open  cabs  was  a  swarm  of  automobiles. 
Then  while  our  spirits  were  keyed  to  the  highest  pitch, 
the  Queen  of  Spain  descended  from  the  train,  wearing 
a  long  black  satin  cloak  and  a  large  black  hat,  very 
blond  and  beautiful  beyond  the  report  of  her  pictures. 
By  each  hand  she  led  one  of  her  two  pretty  boys,  Don 
Jaime,  the  Prince  of  Asturias,  heir  apparent,  and  his 
younger  brother.  She  walked  swiftly,  with  glad,  kind 
looks  around,  and  her  ladies  followed  her  according  to 
their  state;  then  ushered  and  followed  by  the  gentle 
men  assembled  to  receive  them,  they  mounted  to  their 
motors  and  whirred  away  like  so  many  persons  of  a 
histrionic  pageant:  not  least  impressive,  the  court  at 
tendants  filled  a  stage  drawn  by  six  mules,  and  clat 
tered  after. 

From  hearsay  and  reasonable  surmise  we  learned 
that  we  had  not  come  from  Escorial  in  the  Sud-Express 
at  all,  but  in  the  Queen's  special  train  bringing  her  and 
her  children  from  their  autumn  sojourn  at  La  Granja, 
and  that  we  had  been  for  an  hour  a  notable  feature 
of  the  royal  party  without  knowing  it,  and  of  course 
without  getting  the  least  good  of  it.  We  had  indeed 
ignorantly  enjoyed  no  less  of  the  honor  than  two  other 
Americans,  who  came  in  the  dining-car  with  us,  but 
whether  the  nice-looking  Spanish  couple  who  sat  in  the 
corner  next  us  were  equally  ignorant  of  their  advantage 
I  shall  never  know.  It  was  but  too  highly  probable 
that  the  messed  condition  of  the  car  was  due  to  royal 
luncheon  in  it  just  before  we  came  aboard;  but  why 

163 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

we  were  suffered  to  come  aboard,  or  why  a  supple 
mentary  fare  should  have  been  collected  from  us  re 
mains  one  of  those  mysteries  which  I  should  once  have 
liked  to  keep  all  Spain. 

We  had  to  go  quite  outside  of  the  station  grounds 
to  get  a  cab  for  our  hotel,  but  from  this  blow  to  our 
dignity  I  recovered  a  little  later  in  the  day,  when  the 
king,  attended  by  as  small  a  troop  of  cavalry  as  I  sup 
pose  a  king  ever  has  with  him,  came  driving  by  in  the 
street  where  I  was  walking.  As  he  sat  in  his  open 
carriage  he  looked  very  amiable,  and  handsomer  than 
most  of  the  pictures  make  him.  He  seemed  to  be  gaz 
ing  at  me,  and  when  he  bowed  I  could  do  no  less  than 
return  his  salutation.  As  I  glanced  round  to  see  if 
people  near  me  were  impressed  by  our  exchange  of 
civilities,  I  perceived  an  elderly  officer  next  me.  He 
was  smiling  as  I  was,  and  I  think  he  was  in  the  de 
lusion  that  the  king's  bow,  which  I  had  so  promptly 
returned,  was  intended  for  him. 


VIII 
COEDOVA   AKD    THE   WAY   THEKE 

I  SHOULD  be  sorry  if  I  could  believe  that  Cordova 
experienced  the  disappointment  in  us,  which  I  must 
own  we  felt  in  her;  but  our  disappointment  was  un 
questionable,  and  I  will  at  once  offer  it  to  the  reader 
as  an  inducement  for  him  to  go  to  Cordova  with  less 
lively  expectations  than  ours.  I  would  by  no  means 
have  him  stay  away;  after  all,  there  is  only  one  Cor 
dova  in  the  world  which  the  capital  of  the  Caliphate 
of  the  West  once  filled  with  her  renown;  and  if  the 
great  mosque  of  Abderrahman  is  not  so  beautiful  as 
one  has  been  made  to  fancy  it,  still  it  is  wonderful,  and 
could  not  be  missed  without  loss. 


Better,  I  should  say,  take  the  rapido  which  leaves 
Madrid  three  times  a  week  at  nine-thirty  in  the  morn 
ing,  than  the  night  express  which  leaves  as  often  at  the 
same  hour  in  the  evening.  Since  there  are  now  such 
good  day  trains  on  the  chief  Spanish  lines,  it  is  flying 
in  the  face  of  Providence  not  to  go  by  them ;  they  might 
be  suddenly  taken  off;  besides,  they  have  excellent 
restaurant  -  cars,  and  there  is,  moreover,  always  the 
fascinating  and  often  the  memorable  landscape  which 

they  pass  through.     By  no  fault  of  ours  that  I  can 

165 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

remember,  our  train  was  rather  crowded ;  that  is,  four 
or  five  out  of  the  eight  places  in  our  corridor  com 
partment  were  taken,  and  we  were  afraid  at  every  stop 
that  more  people  would  get  in,  though  I  do  not  know 
that  it  was  our  anxieties  kept  them  out.  For  the  matter 
of  that,  I  do  not  know  why  I  employed  an  interpreter 
at  Madrid  to  get  my  ticket  stamped  at  the  ticket-office ; 
it  required  merely  the  presentation  of  the  ticket  at  the 
window;  but  the  interpreter  seemed  to  wish  it  and  it 
enabled  him  to  practise  his  English  with  me,  and  I 
realized  that  he  must  live.  In  a  peseta's  worth  of 
gratitude  he  followed  us  to  our  carriage,  and  he  did 
not  molest  the  mozo  in  putting  our  bags  into  the  racks, 
though  he  hovered  about  the  door  till  the  train  started ; 
and  it  just  now  occurs  to  me  that  he  may  have  thought 
a  peseta  was  not  a  sufficient  return  for  his  gratitude; 
he  had  rendered  us  no  service. 

At  Aranjuez  the  wheat-lands,  which  began  to  widen 
about  us  as  soon  as  we  got  beyond  the  suburbs  of 
Madrid,  gave  way  to  the  groves  and  gardens  of  that 
really  charming  pleasaunce,  charming  quite  from  the 
station,  with  grounds  penetrated  by  placid  waters  over 
hung  by  the  English  elms  which  the  Castilians  are  so 
happy  in  having  naturalized  in  their  treeless  waste. 
Multitudes  of  nightingales  are  said  to  sing  among 
them,  but  it  was  not  the  season  for  hearing  them  from 
the  train;  and  we  made  what  shift  we  could  with  the 
strawberry  and  asparagus  beds  which  we  could  see 
plainly,  and  the  peach  trees  and  cherry  trees.  One  of 
these  had  committed  the  solecism  of  blossoming  in 
October,  instead  of  April  or  May,  when  the  nobility 
came  to  their  villas. 

We  had  often  said  during  our  stay  in  Madrid  that 
we  should  certainly  come  for  a  day  at  Aranjuez;  and 

here  we  were,  passing  it  with  a  five  minutes'  stop.     I 

166 


CORDOVA  AND  THE  WAY  THERE 

am  sure  it  merited  much  more,  not  only  for  its  many 
proud  memories,  but  for  its  shameful  ones,  which  are 
apt  to  be  so  much  more  lasting  in  the  case  of  royal 
pleasaunces.  The  great  Catholic  King  Ferdinand  in 
herited  the  place  with  the  Mastership  of  the  Order  of 
Santiago ;  Charles  V.  used  to  come  there  for  the  shoot 
ing,  and  Philip  II.,  Charleses  III.  and  IV.,  and  Ferdi 
nand  VII.  built  and  rebuilt  its  edifices.  But  it  is  also 
memorable  because  the  wretched  Godoy  fled  there  with 
the  king,  his  friend,  and  the  queen,  his  paramour,  and 
there  the  pitiable  king  abdicated  in  favor  of  his  abomi 
nable  son  Ferdinand  VII.  It  is  the  careful  Murray 
who  reminds  me  of  this  fact;  Gautier,  who  apparently 
fails  to  get  anything  to  his  purpose  out  of  Aranjuez, 
passes  it  with  the  remark  that  Godoy  built  there  a 
gallery  from  his  villa  to  the  royal  palace,  for  his  easier 
access  to  the  royal  family  in  which  he  held  a  place  so 
anomalous.  From  Mr.  Martin  Hume's  Modern  Spain 
I  learn  that  when  the  court  fled  to  Aranjuez  from 
Madrid  before  the  advance  of  Murat,  and  the  mob, 
civil  and  military,  hunted  Godoy's  villa  through  for 
him,  he  jumped  out  of  bed  and  hid  himself  under  a 
roll  of  matting,  while  the  king  and  the  queen,  to  save 
him,  decreed  his  dismissal  from  all  his  offices  and 
honors. 

But  here  just  at  the  most  interesting  moment  the 
successive  bells  and  whistles  are  screeching,  and  the 
rapido  is  hurrying  me  away  from  Aranjuez.  We  are 
leaving  a  railway  station,  but  presently  it  is  as  if  we 
had  set  sail  on  a  gray  sea,  with  a  long  ground-swell 
such  as  we  remembered  from  Old  Castile.  These  in 
numerable  pastures  and  wheat-fields  are  in  New  Castile, 
and  before  long  more  distinctively  they  are  in  La 
Mancha,  the  country  dear  to  fame  as  the  home  of  Don 
Quixote.  I  must  own  at  once  it  does  not  look  it,  or 

167 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

at  least  look  like  the  country  I  had  read  out  of  his 
history  in  my  boyhood.  For  the  matter  of  that,  no 
country  ever  looks  like  the  country  one  reads  out  of  a 
book,  however  really  it  may  be  that  country.  The 
trouble  probably  is  that  one  carries  out  of  one's  reading 
an  image  which  one  had  carried  into  it.  When  I  read 
Don  Quixote  and  read  and  read  it  again,  I  put  La 
Mancha  first  into  the  map  of  southern  Ohio,  and  then 
into  that,  after  an  interval  of  seven  or  eight  years,  of 
northern  Ohio;  and  the  scenes  I  arranged  for  his  ad 
ventures  were  landscapes  composed  from  those  about 
me  in  my  earlier  and  later  boyhood.  There  was  then 
always  something  soft  and  mild  in  the  Don  Quixote 
country,  with  a  blue  river  and  gentle  uplands,  and 
woods  where  one  could  rest  in  the  shade,  and  hide  one's 
self  if  one  wished,  after  easily  rescuing  the  oppressed. 
!N"ow,  instead,  a  treeless  plain  unrolled  itself  from  sky 
to  sky,  clean,  dull,  empty;  and  if  some  azure  tops 
dimmed  the  clear  line  of  the  western  horizon,  how  could 
I  have  got  them  into  my  early  picture  when  I  had 
never  yet  seen  a  mountain  in  my  life?  I  could  not 
put  the  knight  and  his  squire  on  those  naked  levels 
where  they  should  not  have  got  a  mile  from  home 
without  discovery  and  arrest.  I  tried  to  think  of  them 
jogging  along  in  talk  of  the  adventures  which  the 
knight  hoped  for;  but  I  could  not  make  it  work.  I 
could  have  done  better  before  we  got  so  far  from 
Aranjuez ;  there  were  gardens  and  orchards  and  a  very 
suitable  river  there,  and  those  elm  trees  overhanging 
it;  but  the  prospect  in  La  Mancha  had  only  here  and 
there  a  white-called  white  farmhouse  to  vary  its  lonely 
simplicity,  its  desert  fertility;  and  I  could  do  nothing 
with  the  strips  and  patches  of  vineyard.  It  was  all 
strangely  African,  strangely  Mexican,  and  not  at  all 

American,  not  Ohioan,  enough  to  be  anything  like  the 

168 


COKDOVA  AND  THE  WAY  THEEE 

real  La  Mancha  of  my  invention.  To  be  sure,  the  doors 
and  windows  of  the  nearer  houses  were  visibly  netted 
against  mosquitoes  and  that  was  something,  but  even 
that  did  not  begin  to  be  noticeable  till  we  were  drawing 
near  the  Sierra  Morena.  Then,  so  long  before  we 
reached  the  mighty  chain  of  mountains  which  nature 
has  stretched  between  the  gravity  of  New  Castile  and 
the  gaiety  of  Andalusia,  as  if  they  could  not  bear  im 
mediate  contact,  I  experienced  a  moment  of  perfect 
reconciliation  to  the  landscape  as  really  wearing  the 
face  of  that  La  Mancha  familiar  to  my  boyish  vision. 
Late  in  the  forenoon,  but  early  enough  to  save  the  face 
of  La  Mancha,  there  appeared  certain  unquestionable 
shapes  in  the  nearer  and  farther  distance  which  I  joy 
ously  knew  for  those  windmills  which  Don  Quixote 
had  known  for  giants  and  spurred  at,  lance  in  rest. 
They  were  waving  their  vans  in  what  he  had  found 
insolent  defiance,  but  which  seemed  to  us  glad  welcome, 
as  of  windmills  waiting  that  long  time  for  a  reader 
of  Cervantes  who  could  enter  into  their  feelings  and 
into  the  friendly  companionship  they  were  offering. 


ir 

Our  train  did  not  pass  very  near,  but  the  distance 
was  not  bad  for  them;  it  kept  them  sixty  or  sixty-five 
years  back  in  the  past  where  they  belonged,  and  in  its 
dimness  I  could  the  more  distinctly  see  Don  Quixote 
careering  against  them,  and  Sancho  Panza  vainly  warn 
ing,  vainly  imploring  him,  and  then  in  his  rage  and 
despair,  "  giving  himself  to  the  devil,"  as  he  had  so 
often  to  do  in  that  master's  service;  I  do  not  know 
now  that  I  would  have  gone  nearer  them  if  I  could. 
Sometimes  in  the  desolate  plains  whare  the  windmills 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

stood  so  Well  aloof  men  were  lazily,  or  at  least  leisurely, 
plowing  with  their  prehistoric  crooked  sticks.  Here 
and  there  the  clean  levels  were  broken  by  shallow  pools 
of  water;  and  we  were  at  first  much  tormented  by 
expanses,  almost  as  great  as  these  pools,  of  a  certain 
purple  flower,  which  no  curiosity  of  ours  could  prevail 
with  to  yield  up  the  secret  of  its  name  or  nature.  It 
was  one  of  the  anomalies  of  this  desert  country  that 
it  was  apparently  prosperous,  if  one  might  guess  from 
the  comfortable-looking  farmsteads  scattered  over  it, 
inclosing  house  and  stables  in  the  courtyard  framed  by 
their  white  walls.  The  houses  stood  at  no  great  dis 
tances  from  one  another,  but  were  nowhere  grouped  in 
villages.  There  were  commonly  no  towns  near  the 
stations,  which  were  not  always  uncheerf ul ;  sometimes 
there  were  flower-beds,  unless  my  memory  deceives  me. 
Perhaps  there  would  be  a  passenger  or  two,  and  cer 
tainly  a  loafer  or  two,  and  always  of  the  sex  which  in 
town  life  does  the  loafing;  in  the  background  or 
through  the  windows  the  other  sex  could  be  seen  in 
its  domestic  activities.  Only  once  did  we  see  three 
girls  of  such  as  stay  for  the  coming  and  going  of  trains 
the  world  over ;  they  waited  arm  in  arm,  and  we  were 
obliged  to  own  they  were  plain,  poor  things. 

Their  whitewash  saves  the  distant  towns  from  the 
effect  of  sinking  into  the  earth,  or  irregularly  rising 
from  it,  as  in  Old  Castile,  and  the  landscape  cheered 
up  more  and  more  as  we  ran  farther  south.  We  passed 
through  the  country  of  the  Valdepefias  wine,  which  it 
is  said  would  so  willingly  be  better  than  it  is;  there 
was  even  a  station  of  that  name,  which  looked  much 
more  of  a  station  than  most,  and  had,  I  think  I  re 
member,  buildings  necessary  to  the  wine  industry  about 
it.  Murray,  indeed,  emboldens  me  in  this  halting  con 
jecture  with  the  declaration  that  the  neighboring  town 

170 


CORDOVA  AND  THE  WAY  THERE 

of  Valdepefias  is  "  completely  undermined  by  wine- 
cellars  of  very  ancient  date  "  where  the  wine  is  "  kept 
in  caves  in  huge  earthen  jars/'  and  when  removed  is 
put  into  goat  or  pig  skins  in  the  right  Don  Quixote 
fashion. 

The  whole  region  begins  to  reek  of  Cervantean  mem 
ories.  Ten  miles  from  the  station  of  Argamasilla  is 
the  village  where  he  imagined,  and  the  inhabitants  be 
lieve,  Don  Quixote  to  have  been  born.  Somewhere 
among  these  little  towns  Cervantes  himself  was  thrown 
into  prison  for  presuming  to  attempt  collecting  their 
rents  when  the  people  did  not  want  to  pay  them.  This 
is  what  I  seem  to  remember  having  read,  but  heaven 
knows  where,  or  if.  What  is  certain  is  that  almost 
before  I  was  aware  we  were  leaving  the  neighborhood 
of  Valdepenas,  where  we  saw  men  with  donkeys  gather 
ing  grapes  and  letting  the  donkeys  browse  on  the  vine 
leaves.  Then  we  were  mounting  among  the  foothills 
of  the  Sierra  Morena,  not  without  much  besetting 
trouble  of  mind  because  of  those  certain  circles  and 
squares  of  stone  on  the  nearer  and  farther  slopes  which 
we  have  since  somehow  determined  were  sheep-folds. 
They  abounded  almost  to  the  very  scene  of  those  capers 
which  Don  Quixote  cut  on  the  mountainside  to  testify 
his  love  for  Dulcinea  del  Toboso,  to  the  great  scandal 
of  Sancho  Panza  riding  away  to  give  his  letter  to  the 
lady,  but  unable  to  bear  the  sight  of  the  knight  skipping 
on  the  rocks  in  a  single  garment. 


ni 

In  the  forests  about  befell  all  those  adventures  with 
the  mad  Cardenio  and  the  wronged  Dorothea,  both  self- 
banished  to  the  wilderness  through  the  perfidy  of  the 
12  171 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

same  false  friend  and  faithless  lover.     The  episodes 
which  end  so  well,  and  which  form,  I  think,  the  heart 
of  the  wonderful  romance,  have,  from  the  car  windows, 
the   fittest   possible    setting;    but   suddenly   the    scene 
changes,  and  you  are  among  aspects  of  nature  as  sav 
agely  wild  as  any  in  that  new  western  land  where  the 
countrymen  of  Cervantes  found  a  New  Spain,  just  as 
the  countrymen  of  Shakespeare  found  a  New  England. 
Suddenly,  or  if  not  suddenly,  then  startlingly,  we  were 
in  a  pass  of  the  Sierra  called  (for  some  reason  which 
I  will  leave  picturesquely  unexplained)  the  Precipice 
of  Dogs,  where  bare  sharp  peaks  and  spears  of  rock 
started  into  the  air,  and  the  faces  of  the  cliffs  glared 
down  upon  us  like  the  faces  of  Indian  warriors  painted 
yellow  and  orange  and  crimson,  and  every  other  war 
like  color.     With  my  poor  scruples  of  moderation  I 
cannot  give  a  just  notion  of  the  wild  aspects;  I  must 
leave  it  to  the  reader,  with  the  assurance  that  he  can 
not  exaggerate  it,  while  I  employ  myself  in  noting 
that  already  on  this  awful  summit  we  began  to  feel 
ourselves  in  the  south,  in  Andalusia.     Along  the  moun 
tain  stream  that  slipped  silverly  away  in  the  valley 
below,  there  were  oleanders  in  bloom,  such  as  we  had 
left  in  Bermuda  the  April  before.     Already,  north  of 
the  Sierra  the  country  had  been  gentling.     The  up 
turned  soil  had  warmed  from  gray  to  red;  elsewhere 
the  fields  were  green  with  sprouting  wheat;  and  there 
were  wide  spaces  of  those  purple  flowers,  like  crocuses, 
which  women  were  gathering  in  large  baskets.     Prob 
ably  they  were  not  crocuses;  but  there  could  be  no 
doubt  of  the  vineyards  increasing  in  their  acreage ;  and 
the  farmhouses  which  had  been  without  windows  in 
their  outer  walls,  now  sometimes  opened  as  many  as 
two  to  the  passing  train.     Flocks  of  black  sheep  and 
goats,  through  the  optical  illusion  frequent  in  the  Span- 

172 


CORDOVA  AND  THE  WAY  THERE 

ish  air,  looked  large  as  cattle  in  the  offing.  Only  in 
one  place  had  we  seen  the  tumbled  boulders  of  Old 
Castile,  and  there  had  been  really  no  greater  objection 
to  La  Mancha  than  that  it  was  flat,  stale,  and  un 
profitable  and  wholly  unimaginable  as  the  scene  of 
even  Don  Quixote's  first  adventures. 

But  now  that  we  had  mounted  to  the  station  among 
the  summits  of  the  Sierra  Morena,  my  fancy  began  to 
feel  at  home,  and  rested  in  a  scene  which  did  all  the 
work  for  it.  There  was  ample  time  for  the  fancy  to 
rest  in  that  more  than  co-operative  landscape.  Just 
beyond  the  first  station  the  engine  of  a  freight-train 
had  opportunely  left  the  track  in  front  of  us,  and  we 
waited  there  four  hours  till  it  could  be  got  back.  It 
would  be  inhuman  to  make  the  reader  suffer  through 
this  delay  with  us  after  it  ceased  to  be  pleasure  and 
began  to  be  pain.  Of  course,  everybody  of  foreign 
extraction  got  out  of  the  train  and  many  even  went 
forward  to  look  at  the  engine  and  see  what  they  could 
do  about  it;  others  went  partly  forward  and  asked  the 
bolder  spirits  on  their  way  back  what  was  the  matter. 
ISTow  and  then  our  locomotive  whistled  as  if  to  scare 
the  wandering  engine  back  to  the  rails.  At  moments 
the  station-master  gloomily  returned  to  the  station  from 
somewhere  and  diligently  despaired  in  front  of  it. 
Then  we  backed  as  if  to  let  our  locomotive  run  up 
the  siding  and  try  to  butt  the  freight-train  off  the  track 
to  keep  its  engine  company. 

About  this  time  the  restaurant-car  bethought  itself 
of  some  sort  of  late-afternoon  repast,  and  we  went  for 
ward  and  ate  it  with  an  interest  which  we  prolonged 
as  much  as  possible.  We  returned  to  our  car  which 
was  now  pervaded  by  an  extremely  bad  smell.  The 
smell  drove  us  out,  and  we  watched  a  public-spirited 

peasant  beating  the  acorns  from  a  live-oak  near  the 

173 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

station  with  a  long  pole.  He  brought  a  great  many 
down,  and  first  filled  his  sash-pocket  with  them;  then 
he  distributed  them  among  the  children  of  the  third- 
class  passengers  who  left  the  train  and  flocked  about 
him.  But  nobody  seemed  to  do  anything  with  the 
acorns,  though  they  were  more  than  an  inch  long,  nar 
row,  and  very  sharp-pointed.  As  soon  as  he  had  dis 
charged  his  self-assumed  duty  the  peasant  lay  down 
on  the  sloping  bank  under  the  tree,  and  with  his  face 
in  the  grass,  went  to  sleep  for  all  our  stay,  and  for  what 
I  know  the  whole  night  after. 

It  did  not  now  seem  likely  that  we  should  ever  reach 
Cordova,  though  people  made  repeated  expeditions  to 
the  front  of  the  train,  and  came  back  reporting  that  in 
an  hour  we  should  start.  We  interested  ourselves  as 
intensely  as  possible  in  a  family  from  the  next  compart 
ment,  London-tailored,  and  speaking  either  Spanish  or 
English  as  they  fancied,  who  we  somehow  understood 
lived  at  Barcelona;  but  nothing  came  of  our  interest. 
Then  as  the  day  waned  we  threw  ourselves  into  the 
interest  taken  by  a  fellow-passenger  in  a  young  Spanish 
girl  of  thirteen  or  fourteen  who  had  been  in  the  care 
of  a  youngish  middle-aged  man  when  our  train  stopped, 
and  been  then  abandoned  by  him  for  hours,  while  he 
seemed  to  be  satisfying  a  vain  curiosity  at  the  head  of 
the  train.  She  owned  that  the  deserter  was  her  father, 
and  while  we  were  still  poignantly  concerned  for  her 
he  came  back  and  relieved  the  anxiety  which  the  girl 
herself  had  apparently  not  shared  even  under  pressure 
of  the  whole  compartment's  sympathy. 


rv 

The  day  waned  more  and  more;  the  sun  began  to 
sink,  and  then  it  sank  with  that  sudden  drop  which 

174 


CORDOVA  AND  THE  WAY  THERE 

the  sun  has  at  last.  The  sky  flushed  crimson,  turned 
mauve,  turned  gray,  and  the  twilight  thickened  over 
the  summits  billowing  softly  westward.  There  had 
been  a  good  deal  of  joking,  both  Spanish  and  English, 
among  the  passengers ;  I  had  found  particularly  cheer 
ing  the  richness  of  a  certain  machinist's  trousers  of 
bright  golden  corduroy ;  but  as  the  shades  of  night 
began  to  embrown  the  scene  our  spirits  fell;  and  at 
the  cry  of  a  lonesome  bird,  far  off  where  the  sunset  had 
been,  they  followed  the  sun  in  its  sudden  drop.  Against 
the  horizon  a  peasant  boy  leaned  on  his  staff  and  darkled 
against  the  darkening  sky. 

Nothing  lacked  now  but  the  opportune  recollection 
that  this  was  the  region  where  the  natives  had  been 
so  wicked  in  times  past  that  an  ingenious  statesman, 
such  as  have  seldom  been  wanting  to  Spain,  imagined 
bringing  in  a  colony  of  German  peasants  to  mix  with 
them  and  reform  them.  That  is  what  some  of  the 
books  say,  but  others  say  that  the  region  had  remained 
unpeopled  after  the  first  exile  of  the  conquered  Moors. 
All  hold  that  the  notion  of  mixing  the  colonists  and  the 
natives  worked  the  wrong  way;  the  natives  were  not 
reformed,  but  the  colonists  were  depraved  and  stood 
in  with  the  local  brigands,  ultimately,  if  not  immedi 
ately.  This  is  the  view  suggested,  if  not  taken,  by  that 
amusing  emissary,  George  Borrow,  who  seems  in  his 
Bible  in  8 pain  to  have  been  equally  employed  in  dis 
tributing  the  truths  of  the  New  Testament  and  collect 
ing  material  for  the  most  dramatic  study  of  Spanish 
civilization  known  to  literature.  It  is  a  delightful 
book,  and  not  least  delightful  in  the  moments  of  mis 
giving  which  it  imparts  to  the  reader,  when  he  does  not 
know  whether  to  prize  more  the  author's  observation  or 
his  invention,  whichever  it  may  be.  Borrow  reports 

a  conversation  with  an  innkeeper  and  his  wife  of  the 

175 


FAMILIAK  SPANISH  TRAVELS 

Colonial  German  descent,  who  gave  a  good  enough 
account  of  themselves,  and  then  adds  the  dark  intima 
tion  of  an  Italian  companion  that  they  could  not  be 
honestly  .keeping  a  hotel  in  that  unfrequented  place. 
It  was  not  just  in  that  place  that  our  delay  had  chosen 
to  occur,  but  it  was  in  the  same  colonized  region,  and 
I  am  glad  now  that  I  had  not  remembered  the  incident 
from  my  first  reading  of  Borrow.  It  was  sufficiently 
uncomfortable  to  have  some  vague  association  with  the 
failure  of  that  excellent  statesman's  plan,  blending 
creepily  with  the  feeling  of  desolation  from  the  gather 
ing  dark,  and  I  now  recall  the  distinct  relief  given 
by  the  unexpected  appearance  of  two  such  Guardias 
Civiles  as  travel  with  every  Spanish  train,  in  the  space 
before  our  lonely  station. 

These  admirable  friends  were  part  of  the  system 
which  has  made  travel  as  safe  throughout  Spain  as  it 
is  in  Connecticut,  where  indeed  I  sometimes  wonder 
that  road-agents  do  not  stop  my  Boston  express  in  the 
waste  expanse  of  those  certain  sand  barrens  just  beyond 
New  Haven.  The  last  time  I  came  through  that  desert 
I  could  not  help  thinking  how  nice  it  would  be  to  have 
two  Guardias  Civiles  in  our  Pullman  car;  but  of 
course  at  the  summit  of  the  Sierra  Morena,  where  our 
rapido  was  stalled  in  the  deepening  twilight,  it  was 
still  nicer  to  see  that  soldier  pair,  pacing  up  and  down, 
trim,  straight,  very  gentle  and  polite-looking,  but  firm, 
with  their  rifles  lying  on  their  shoulders  which  they 
kept  exactly  together.  It  is  part  of  the  system  that 
they  may  use  those  rifles  upon  any  evil-doer  whom 
they  discover  in  a  deed  of  violence,  acting  at  once  as 
police,  court  of  law,  and  executioners;  and  satisfying 
public  curiosity  by  pinning  to  the  offender's  coat  their 
official  certificate  that  he  was  shot  by  such  and  such  a 

civil  guard  for  such  and  such  a  reason,  and  then  notify- 

176 


CORDOVA  AND  THE  WAY  THERE 

ing  the  nearest  authorities.  It  is  perhaps  too  positive, 
too  peremptory,  too  precise;  and  the  responsibility 
could  not  be  intrusted  to  men  who  had  not  satisfied  the 
government  of  their  fitness  by  two  years'  service  in  the 
army  without  arrest  for  any  offense,  or  even  any  ques 
tion  of  misbehavior.  But  these  conditions  once  satis 
fied,  and  their  temperament  and  character  approved, 
they  are  intrusted  with  what  seem  plenary  powers  till 
they  are  retired  for  old  age;  then  their  sons  may  serve 
after  them  as  Civil  Guards  with  the  same  prospect  of 
pensions  in  the  end.  I  suppose  they  do  not  always 
travel  first  class,  but  once  their  silent,  soldierly  presence 
honored  our  compartment  between  stations;  and  once 
an  officer  of  their  corps  conversed  for  long  with  a  fel 
low-passenger  in  that  courteous  ease  and  self-respect 
which  is  so  Spanish  between  persons  of  all  ranks. 

It  was  not  very  long  after  the  guards  appeared  so 
reassuringly  before  the  station,  when  a  series  of  warn 
ing  bells  and  whistles  sounded,  and  our  locomotive  with 
an  impatient  scream  began  to  tug  at  our  train.  We 
were  really  off,  starting  from  Santa  Elena  at  the  very 
time  when  we  ought  to  have  been  stopping  at  Cordova, 
with  a  good  stretch  of  four  hours  still  before  us.  As 
our  fellow-travelers  quitted  us  at  one  station  and  an 
other  we  were  finally  left  alone  with  the  kindly-looking 
old  man  who  had  seemed  interested  in  us  from  the  first, 
and  who  now  made  some  advances  in  broken  English. 
Presently  he  told  us  in  Spanish,  to  account  for  the 
English  accent  on  which  we  complimented  him,  that 
he  had  two  sons  studying  some  manufacturing  busi 
ness  in  Manchester,  where  he  had  visited  them,  and 
acquired  so  much  of  our  tongue  as  we  had  heard.  He 
was  very  proud  and  glad  to  speak  of  his  sons,  and 
he  valued  us  for  our  English  and  the  strangeness  which 

commends  people  to  one  another  in  travel.     When  he 

177 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

got  out  at  a  station  obscured  past  identification  by  its 
flaring  lamps,  he  would  not  suffer  me  to  help  him 
with  his  hand-baggage;  while  he  deplored  my  offered 
civility,  he  reassured  me  by  patting  my  back  at  parting. 
Yet  I  myself  had  to  endure  the  kindness  which  he  would 
not  when  we  arrived  at  Cordova,  where  two  young 
fellows,  who  had  got  in  at  a  suburban  station,  helped 
me  with  our  bags  and  bundles  quite  as  if  they  had 
been  two  young  Americans. 


V. 

Somewhere  at  a  junction  our  train  had  been  divided 
and  our  car,  left  the  last  of  what  remained,  had  bumped 
and  threatened  to  beat  itself  to  pieces  during  its  re 
maining  run  of  fifteen  miles.  This,  with  our  long 
retard  at  Santa  Elena,  and  our  opportune  defense  from 
the  depraved  descendants  of  the  reforming  German 
colonists  by  the  Guardias  Civiles,  had  given  us  a  day 
of  so  much  excitement  that  we  were  anxious  to  have  it 
end  tranquilly  at  midnight  in  the  hotel  which  we  had 
chosen  from  our  Baedeker.  I  would  not  have  any 
reader  of  mine  choose  it  again  from  my  experience  of 
it,  though  it  was  helplessly*  rather  wilfully  bad ;  cer 
tainly  the  fault  was  not  the  hotel's  that  it  seemed  as 
far  from  the  station  as  Cordova  was  from  Madrid.  It 
might,  under  the  circumstances,  have,  been  a  merit  in 
it  to  be  undergoing  a  thorough  overhauling  of  the 
furnishing  and  decoration  of  the  rooms  on  the  patio 
which  had  formed  our  ideal  for  a  quiet  night.  rA  con 
ventionally  napkined  waiter  welcomed  us  from  tHe  stony 
street,  and  sent  us  up  to  our  rooms  with  the  young  inter 
preter  who  met  us  at  the  station,  but  was  obscure  as 

to  their  location.    When  we  refused  them  because  they 

178 


CORDOVA  AND  THE  WAY  THERE 

were  over  that  loud-echoing  alley,  the  interpreter  made 
himself  still  more  our  friend  and  called  mandatorially 
down  the  speaking-tube  that  we  wished  interiores  and 
would  take  nothing  else,  though  he  must  have  known 
that  no  such  rooms  were  to  be  had.  He  even  abetted 
us  in  visiting  the  rooms  on  the  patio  and  satisfying 
ourselves  that  they  were  all  dismantled;  when  the 
waiter  brought  up  the  hot  soup  which  was  the  only 
hot  thing  in  the  house  beside  our  tempers,  he  joined 
with  that  poor  fellow  in  reconciling  us  to  the  inevitable. 
They  declared  that  the  people  whom  we  heard  uninter 
ruptedly  clattering  and  chattering  by  in  the  street  be 
low,  and  the  occasional  tempest  of  wheels  and  bells  and 
hoofs  that  clashed  up  to  us,  would  be  the  very  last 
to  pass  through  there  that  night,  and  they  gave  such 
good  and  sufficient  reasons  for  their  opinion  that  we 
yielded  as  we  needs  must.  Of  course,  they  were  wrong ; 
and  perhaps  they  even  knew  that  they  were  wrong; 
but  I  think  we  were  the  only  people  in  that  neighbor 
hood  who  got  any  sleep  that  night  or  the  next.  We 
slept  the  sleep  of  exhaustion,  but  I  believe  those  Cor- 
dovese  preferred  waking  outdoors  to  trying  to  sleep 
within.  It  was  apparently  their  custom  to  walk  and 
talk  the  night  away  in  the  streets,  not  our  street  alone, 
but  all  the  other  streets  of  Cordova ;  the  laughing  which 
I  heard  may  have  expressed  the  popular  despair  of  get 
ting  any  sleep.  The  next  day  we  experimented  in 
listening  from'  rooms  offered  us  over  another  street, 
and  then  we  remained  measurably  contented  to  bear 
the  ills  we  had.  This  was  after  an  exhaustive  search 
for  a  better  hotel  had  partly  appeased  us;  but  there 
remained  in  the  P'aseo  del  Gran  Capitan  one  house 
unvisited  which  has  ever  since  grown  upon  my  belief 
as  embracing  every  comfort  and  advantage  lacking 

to  our  hotel.     I  suppose  I  am  the  stronger  in  this  be- 

179 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

lief  because  when  we  came  to  it  we  had  been  so  dis 
appointed  with  the  others  that  we  had  not  the  courage 
to  go  inside.  Smell  for  smell,  the  interior  of  that  hotel 
may  have  harbored  a  worse  one  than  the  odor  of  hen 
house  which  pervaded  ours,  I  hope  from  the  materials 
for  calcimining  the  rooms  on  the  patio. 

By  the  time  we  returned  we  found  a  guide  waiting 
for  us,  and  we  agreed  with  him  for  a  day's  service.  He 
did  not  differ  with  other  authorities  as  to  the  claims 
of  Cordova  on  the  tourist's  interest.  From  being  the 
most  brilliant  capital  of  the  Western  world  in  the  time 
of  the  Caliphs  it  is  now  allowed  by  all  the  guides  and 
guide-books  and  most  of  the  travelers,  to  be  one  of  the 
dullest  of  provincial  towns.  It  is  no  longer  the  center 
of  learning;  and  though  it  cannot  help  doing  a  large 
business  in  olives,  with  the  orchards  covering  the 
hills  around  it,  the  business  does  not  seem  to  be  a 
very  active  one.  "  The  city  once  the  abode  of  the 
flower  of  Andalusian  nobility,"  says  the  intelligent 
O'Shea  in  his  Guide  to  Spain,  "  is  inhabited  chiefly  by 
administradores  of  the  absentee  senorio ;  their  '  solares  ' 
are  desert  and  wretched,  the  streets  ill  paved  though 
clean,  and  the  whitewashed  houses  unimportant,  low, 
and  denuded  of  all  art  and  meaning,  either  past  or 
present."  Baedeker  gives  like  reasons  for  thinking 
"  the  traveler  whose  expectation  is  on  tiptoe  as  he 
enters  the  ancient  capital  of  the  Moors  will  probably 
be  disappointed  in  all  but  the  cathedral."  C.ook's 
Guide,  latest  but  not  least  commendable  of  the  au 
thorities,  is  of  a  more  divided  mind  and  finds  the  means 
of  trade  and  industry  and  their  total  want  of  visible 
employment  at  the  worst  anomalous. 

Vacant,  narrow  streets  where  the  grass  does  not  grow, 
and  there  is  only  an  endless  going  and  coming  of  aim 
less  feet;  a  market  without  buyers  or  sellers  to  speak 

180 


COEDOVA  AND  THE  WAY  THERE 

of,  and  a  tangle  of  squat  white  houses,  abounding  in 
lovely  patios,  sweet  and  bright  with  flowers  and  foun 
tains  :  this  seems  to  be  Cordova  in  the  consensus  of  the 
manuals,  and  with  me  in  the  retrospect  a  sort  of  puzzle 
is  the  ultimate  suggestion  of  the  dead  capital  of  the 
Western  Caliphs.  Gautier  thinks,  or  seventy-two  years 
ago  he  thought  (and  there  has  not  been  much  change 
since),  that  "  Cordova  has  a  more  African  look  than  any 
other  city  of  Andalusia;  its  streets,  or  rather  its  lanes, 
whose  tumultuous  pavement  resembles  the  bed  of  dry 
torrents,  all  littered  with  straw  from  the  loads  of  pass 
ing  donkeys,  have  nothing  that  recalls  the  manners  and 
customs  of  Europe.  The  Moors,  if  they  came  back, 
would  have  no  great  trouble  to  reinstate  themselves. 
.  .  .  The  universal  use  of  lime-wash  gives  a  uniform 
tint  to  the  monuments,  blunts  the  lines  of  the  archi 
tecture,  effaces  the  ornamentation,  and  forbids  you  to 
read  their  age.  .  .  .  You  cannot  know  the  wall  of  a 
century  ago  from  the  wall  of  yesterday.  Cordova,  once 
the  center  of  Arab  civilization,  is  now  a  huddle  of  little 
white  houses  with  corridors  between  them  where  two 
mules  could  hardly  pass  abreast.  Life  seems  to  have 
ebbed  from  the  vast  body,  once  animated  by  the  active 
circulation  of  Moorish  blood;  nothing  is  left  now  but 
the  blanched  and  calcined  skeleton.  ...  In  spite  of 
its  Moslem  air,  Cordova  is  very  Christian  and  rests 
under  the  special  protection  of  the  Archangel  Raphael." 
It  is  all  rather  contradictory;  but  Gautier  owns  that 
the  great  mosque  is  a  "  monument  unique  in  the  world, 
and  novel  even  for  travelers  who  have  had  the  fortune 
to  admire  the  wonders  of  Moorish  architecture  at  Gra 
nada  or  Seville." 

De  Amicis,  who  visited  Cordova  nearly  forty-five 
years  later,  and  in  the  heart  of  spring,  brought  letters 
which  opened  something  of  the  intimate  life  of  that 

181 


FAMILIAR  SPANISH  TRAVELS 

apparently  blanched  and  calcined  skeleton.  He  meets 
young  men  and  matches  Italian  verses  with  their  Span 
ish  ;  spends  whole  nights  sitting  in  their  cafes  or  walk 
ing  their  plazas,  and  comes  away  with  his  mouth  full 
of  the  rapturous  verses  of  an  Arab  poet :  "  Adieu, 
Cordova !  Would  that  my  life  were  as  long  as  Noah's, 
that  I  might  live  forever  within  thy  walls!  Would 
that  I  had  the  treasures  of  Pharaoh,  to  spend  them  upon 
wine  and  the  beautiful  women  of  Cordova,  with  the 
gentle  eyes  that  invite  kisses!"  He  allows  that  the 
lines  may  be  "  a  little  too  tropical  for  the  taste  of  a 
European,"  and  it  seems  to  me  that  there  may  be  a 
golden  mean  between  scolding  and  flattering  which 
would  give  the  truth  about  Cordova.  I  do  not  promise 
to  strike  it;  our  hotel  still  rankles  in  my  heart;  but 
I  promise  to  try  for  it,  though  I  have  to  say  that  the 
very  moment  we  started  for  the  famous  mosque  it 
began  to  rain,  and  rained  throughout  the  forenoon, 
while  we  weltered  from  wonder  to  wonder  through  the 
town.  We  were  indeed  weltering  in  a  closed  carriage, 
which  found  its  way  not  so  badly  through  the  alleys 
r  where  two  mules  could  not  pass  abreast.  The  lime-wash  r 
of  the  walls  did  not  emit  the  white  heat  in  which  the) 
other  tourists  have  basked  or  baked ;  the  houses  looked 
wet  and  chill,  and  if  they  had  those  flowered  and  foun- 
tained  patios  which  people  talk  of  they  had  taken  them( 
in  out  of  the  rain. 


VI 

At  the  mosque  the  patio  was  not  taken  in  only  be 
cause  it  was  so  large,  but  I  find  by  our  records  that 
it  was  much  molested  by  a  beggar  who  followed  us 
when  we  dismounted  at  the  gate  of  the  Court  of 
Oranges,  and  all  but  took  our  minds  off  the  famous 

182 


CORDOVA  AND  THE  WAY  THERE 

Moorish  fountain  in  the  midst.  It  was  not  a  fountain 
of  the  plashing  or  gushing  sort,  but  a  noble  great  pool 
in  a  marble  basin.  The  women  who  clustered  about  it 
were  not  laughing  and  chattering,  or  singing,  or  even 
dancing,  in  the  right  Andalusian  fashion,  but  stood 
silent  in  statuesque  poses  from  which  they  seemed  in 
no  haste  to  stir  for  filling  their  water  jars  and  jugs. 
The  Moorish  tradition  of  irrigation  confronting  one  in 
all  the  travels  and  histories  as  a  supreme  agricultural 
advantage  which  the  Arabs  took  back  to  Africa  with 
them,  leaving  Spain  to  thirst  and  fry,  lingers  here  in 
the  circles  sunk  round  the  orange  trees  and  fed  by  little 
channels.  The  trees  grew  about  as  the  fancy  took  them, 
and  did  not  mind  the  incongruous  palms  towering  as 
irregularly  above  them.  While  we  wandered  toward 
the  mosque  a  woman  robed  in  white  cotton,  with  a 
lavender  scarf  crossing  her  breast,  came  in  as  irrelevant 
ly  as  the  orange  trees  and  stood  as  stably  as  the  palms ; 
in  her  night-black  hair  she  alone  in  Cordova  redeemed 
the  pledge  of  beauty  made  for  all  Andalusian  women 
by  the  reckless  poets  and  romancers,  whether  in  ballads 
or  books  of  travel. 

One  enters  the  court  by  a  gate  in  a  richly  yellow 
tower,  with  a  shrine  to  St.  Michael  over  the  door,  and 
still  higher  at  the  lodging  of  the  keeper  a  bed  of  bright 
flowers.  Then,  however,  one  is  confronted  with  the 
first  great  disappointment  in  the  mosque.  Shall  it  be 
whispered  in  awe-stricken  undertone  that  the  impres 
sion  of  a  bull-ring  is  what  lingers  in  the  memory  of 
the  honest  sight-seer  from  his  first  glance  at  the  edifice? 
The  effect  is  heightened  by  the  filling  of  the  arcades 
which  encircle  it,  and  which  now  confront  the  eye  with 
a  rounded  wall,  where  the  Saracenic  horseshoe  remains 
distinct,  but  the  space  of  yellow  masonry  below  seems 

to  forbid  the  outsider  stealing  knowledge  of  the  spec- 

183 


FAMILIAR  SPANISH  TRAVELS 

tacle  inside.  The  spectacle  is  of  course  no  feast  of 
bulls  (as  the  Spanish  euphemism  has  it),  but  the  first 
amphitheatrical  impression  is  not  wholly  dispersed  by 
the  sight  of  the  interior.  In  order  that  the  reader  at 
his  distance  may  figure  this,  he  must  imagine  an  in 
definite  cavernous  expanse,  with  a  low  roof  supported 
in  vaulted  arches  by  some  thousand  marble  pillars,  each 
with  a  different  capital.  There  used  to  be  perhaps 
hajf^thousand  more  pillars,  and  Charles  V.  made  the 
Oordovese  his  reproaches  for  destroying  the  wonder  of 
them  when  they  planted  their  proud  cathedral  in  the 
heart  of  the  mosque.  He  held  it  a  sort  of  sacrilege, 
but  I  think  the  honest  traveler  will  say  that  there  are 
still  enough  of  those  rather  stumpy  white  marble 
columns  left,  and  enough  of  those  arches,  striped  in 
red  and  white  with  their  undeniable  suggestion  of 
calico  awnings.  It  is  like  a  grotto  gaudily  but  dingily 
decorated,  or  a  vast  circus-tent  curtained  off  in  hangings 
of  those  colors. 

One  sees  the  sanctuary  where  the  great  Caliph  said 
his  prayers,  and  the  Koran  written  by  Othman  and 
stained  with  his  blood  was  kept;  but  I  know  at  least 
one  traveler  who  saw  it  without  sentiment  or  any  sort 
of  reverent  emotion,  though  he  had  not  the  authority 
of  the  "  old  rancid  Christianity "  of  a  Castilian  for 
withholding  his  homage.  If  people  would  be  as  sincere 
as  other  people  would  like  them  to  be,  I  think  no  one 
would  profess  regret  for  the  Arab  civilization  in  the 
presence  of  its  monuments.  Those  Moors  were  of  a 
religion  which  revolts  all  the  finer  instincts  and  lifts 
the  soul  with  no  generous  hopes;  and  the  records  of  it 
have  no  appeal  save  to  the  love  of  mere  beautiful 
decoration.  Even  here  it  mostly  fails,  to  my  thinking, 
and  I  say  that  for  my  part  I  found  nothing  so  grand 

in  the  great  mosoue  of  Cordova  as  the  cathedral  which 

184 


THE    BELL-TOWER   OF   THE    GREAT   MOSQUE,    CORDOVA 


CORDOVA  AND  THE  WAY  THERE 

rises  in  the  heart  of  it.  If  Abderrahman  boasted  that 
he  would  rear  a  shrine  to  the  joy  of  earthly  life  and 
the  hope  of  an  earthly  heaven,  in  the  place  of  the 
Christian  temple  which  he  would  throw  down,  I  should 
like  to  overhear  what  his  disembodied  spirit  would 
have  to  say  to  the  saint  whose  shrine  he  demolished. 
I  think  the  saint  would  have  the  better  of  him  in  any 
contention  for  their  respective  faiths,  and  could  easily 
convince  the  impartial  witness  that  his  religion  then 
abiding  in  medieval  gloom  was  of  promise  for  the 
future  which  Islam  can  never  be.  Yet  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  when  Abderraham  built  his  mosque  the 
Arabs  of  Cordova  were  a  finer  and  wiser  people  than 
the  Christians  who  dwelt  in  intellectual  darkness  among 
them,  with  an  ideal  of  gloom  and  self-denial  and  a  zeal 
for  aimless  martyrdom  which  must  have  been  very  hard 
for  a  gentleman  and  scholar  to  bear.  Gentlemen  and 
scholars  were  what  the  Arabs  of  the  Western  Caliphate 
seem  to  have  become,  with  a  primacy  in  medicine  and 
mathematics  beyond  the  learning  of  all  other  Europe 
in  their  day.  They  were  tolerant  skeptics  in  matters 
of  religion;  polite  agnostics,  who  disliked  extremely 
the  passion  of  some  Christians  dwelling  among  them 
for  getting  themselves  put  to  death,  as  they  did,  for 
insulting  the  popularly  accepted  Mohammedan  creed. 
Probably  people  of  culture  in  Cordova  were  quite  of 
Abderrahman's  mind  in  wishing  to  substitute  the  temple 
of  a  cheerfuler  ideal  for  the  shrine  of  the  medieval 
Christianity  which  he  destroyed;  though  they  might 
have  had  their  reserves  as  to  the  taste  in  which  his 
mosque  was  completed.  If  they  recognized  it  as  a 
concession  to  the  general  preference,  they  could  do  so 
without  the  discomfort  which  they  must  have  suffered 
when  some  new  horde  of  Berbers,  full  of  faith  and 

fight,  came  over  from  Africa  to  push  back  the  encroach- 

185 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

ing  Spanish  frontier,  and  give  the  local  Christians  as 
much  martyrdom  as  they  wanted. 

It  is  all  a  conjecture  based  upon  material  witness  no 
more  substantial  than  that  which  the  Latin  domination 
left  long  centuries  before  the  Arabs  came  to  possess 
the  land.  The  mosque  from  which  you  drive  through 
the  rain  to  the  river  is  neither  newer  nor  older  looking 
than  the  beautiful  Saracenic  bridge  over  the  Guadal 
quivir  which  the  Arabs  themselves  say  was  first  built 
by  the  Romans  in  the  time  of  Augustus;  the  Moorish 
mill  by  the  thither  shore  might  have  ground  the  first 
wheat  grown  in  Europe.  It  is  intensely,  immemorially 
African,  flat-roofed,  white-walled ;  the  mules  waiting 
outside  in  the  wet  might  have  been  drooping  there 
ever  since  the  going  down  of  the  Flood,  from  which 
the  river  could  have  got  its  muddy  yellow. 

If  the  reader  will  be  advised  by  me  he  will  not  go 
to  the  Archaeological  Museum,  unless  he  wishes  par 
ticularly  to  contribute  to  the  support  of  the  custodian; 
the  collection  will  not  repay  him  even  for  the  time  in 
which  a  whole  day  of  Cordova  will  seem  so  super 
abundant.  Any  little  street  will  be  worthier  his  study, 
with  its  type  of  passing  girls  in  white  and  black  man 
tillas,  and  its  shallow  shops  of  all  sorts,  their  fronts 
thrown  open,  and  their  interiors  flung,  as  it  were,  on 
the  sidewalk.  It  is  said  that  the  streets  were  the  first 
to  be  paved  in  Europe,  and  they  have  apparently  not 
been  repaved  since  850.  This  indeed  will  not  liold 
quite  true  of  that  thoroughfare,  twenty  feejt  wide  at 
least,  which  led  from  our  hotel  to  the  Paseo  del  Gran 
Capitan.  In  this  were  divers  shops  o'f  the  genteeler 
sort,  and  some  large  cafes,  standing  full  of  men  of 
leisure,  who  crowded  to  tHeir  doors  and  windows,  with 
their  hats  on  and  their  Hands  in  their  pockets,  as  at  a 
club,  and  let  no  -fact  of  the  passing  world  escape  thoir 

180 


CORDOVA  AND  THE  WAY  THERE 

hungry  eyes.     Their  behavior  expressed  a  famine  of 
incident  in  Cordova  which  was  pathetic. 


VII 

The  people  did  not  look  very  healthy  as  to  build  or 
color,  and  there  was  a  sound  of  coughing  everywhere. 
To  be  sure,  it  was  now  the  season  of  the  first  colds, 
which  would  no  doubt  wear  off  with  the  coming  of  next 
spring;  and  there  was  at  any  rate  not  nearly  so  much 
begging  as  at  Toledo,  because  there  could  not  be  any 
where.  I  am  sorry  I  can  contribute  no  statistics  as 
to  the  moral  or  intellectual  condition  of  Cordova;  per 
haps  they  will  not  be  expected  or  desired  of  me;  I 
can  only  say  that  the  general  intelligence  is  such  that 
no  one  will  own  he  does  not  know  anything  you  ask 
him  even  when  he  does  not;  but  this  is  a  national 
rather  than  a  local  trait,  which  causes  the  stranger  to 
go  in  many  wrong  directions  all  over  the  peninsula.  I 
should  not  say  that  there  was  any  noticeable  decay  of 
character  from  the  north"  to  the  south  such  as  the  at 
tributive  pride  of  the  old  Castilian  in  the  Sheridan 
Knowlesian  drama  would  teach;  the  Cordovese  looked 
no  more  shiftless  than  the  haughtiest  citizens  of  Burgos. 

They  had  decidedly  prettier  patios  and  more  of  them, 
and  they  had  many  public  carriages  against  none  what 
ever  in  that  ancient  capital.  Kubber  tires  I  did  not 
expect  in  Cordova  and  certainly  did  not  get  in  a  city 
wHere  a  single  course  over  the  pavements  of  850  would 
have  worn  them  to  tatters :  but  there  seems  a  good  deal 
of  public  spirit  if  one  may  judge  from  the  fact  that 
it  is  the  municipality  which  keeps  Abderrahman's 
mosque  in  repair.  There  are  public  gardens,  'far 

pleasanter  tKan  tKose  of  Valladolid,  whicE  we  visited 
13  187 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

in  an  interval  of  the  afternoon,  and  there  is  a  very 
personable  bull-ring  to  which  we  drove  in  the  vain  hope 
of  seeing  the  people  come  out  in  a  typical  multitude. 
But  there  had  been  no  feast  of  bulls;  and  we  had  to 
make  what  we  could  out  of  the  walking  and  driving 
in  the  Paseo  del  Gran  Capitan  toward  evening.  In 
its  long,  discouraging  course  there  were  some  good 
houses,  but  not  many,  and  the  promenaders  of  any 
social  quality  were  almost  as  few.  Some  ladies  in 
private  carriages  were  driving  out,  and  a  great  many 
more  in  public  ones  as  well  dressed  as  the  others,  but 
with  no  pretense  of  state  in  the  horses  or  drivers.  The 
women  of  the  people  all  wore  flowers  in  their  hair,  a 
dahlia  or  a  marigold,  whether  their  hair  was  black 
or  gray.  No  ladies  were  walking  in  the  Paseo,  except 
one  pretty  mother,  with  her  nice-looking  children  about 
her,  who  totaled  the  sum  of  her  class ;  but  men  of  every 
class  rather  swarmed.  High  or  low,  they  all  wore  the 
kind  of  hat  which  abounds  everywhere  in  Andalusia 
and  is  called  a  Cordovese:  flat,  stiff,  squat -in  crown 
and  wide  in  brim,  and  of  every  shade  of  gray,  brown, 
and  black. 

I  ought  to  have  had  my  associations  with  the  great 
Captain  Gonsalvo  in  the  promenade  which  the  city 
has  named  after  him,  but  I  am  not  sure  that  I  had, 
though  his  life  was  one  of  the  Spanish  books  which 
I  won  my  way  through  in  the  middle  years  of  my 
pathless  teens.  A  comprehensive  ignorance  of  the  coun 
tries  and  histories  which  formed  the  setting  of  his 
most  dramatic  career  was  not  the  best  preparation  for 
knowledge  of  the  man,  but  it  was  the  best  I  had,  and 
now  I  can  only  look  back  at  my  struggle  with  him  and 
wonder  that  I  came  off  alive.  It  is  the  hard  fate  of 
the  self-taught  that  their  learning  must  cost  them  twice 

as  much  labor  as  it  would  if  they  were  taught  by  others ; 

188 


CORDOVA  AND  THE  WAY  THERE 

the  very  books  they  study  are  grudging  friends  if  not 
insidious  foes.  Long  afterward  when  I  came  to  Italy, 
and  began  to  make  the  past  part  of  my  present,  I  be 
gan  to  untangle  a  little  the  web  that  the  French  and 
the  Aragonese  wove  in  the  conquest  and  reconquest  of 
the  wretched  Sicilies;  but  how  was  I  to  imagine  in 
the  Connecticut  Western  Reserve  the  scene  of  Gon- 
salvo's  victories  in  Oalabria?  Even  loath  Ferdinand 
the  Catholic  said  they  brought  greater  glory  to  his 
crown  than  his  own  conquest  of  Granada;  I  dare  say 
I  took  some  unintelligent  pride  in  his  being  Viceroy 
of  Naples,  and  I  may  have  been  indignant  at  his  re 
call  and  then  his  retirement  from  court  by  the  jealous 
king.  But  my  present  knowledge  of  these  facts,  and 
of  his  helping  put  down  the  Moorish  insurrection  in 
1500,  as  well  as  his  exploits  as  commander  of  a  Spanish 
armada  against  the  Turks  is  a  recent  debt  I  owe  to 
the  Encyclopedia  Britannica  and  not  to  my  boyish 
researches.  Of  like  actuality  is  my  debt  to  IVCr.  Cal- 
vert's  Southern  Spain,  where  he  quotes  the  accounting 
which  the  Great  Captain  gave  on  the  greedy  king's 
demand  for  a  statement  of  his  expenses  in  the 
Sicilies. 

"  Two  hundred  thousand  seven  hundred  and  thirty- 
six  ducats  and  9  reals  paid  to  the  clergy  and  the  poor 
who  prayed  for  the  victory  of  the  army  of  Spain. 

"  One  hundred  millions  in  pikes,  bullets,  and  in 
trenching  tools;  10,000  ducats  in  scented  gloves,  to  pre 
serve  the  troops  from  the  odor  of  the  enemies'  dead 
left  on  the  battle-field;  100,000  ducats,  spent  in  the 
repair  of  the  bells  completely  worn  out  by  every-day 
announcing  fresh  victories  gained  over  our  enemies; 
50,000  ducats  in  f  aguardiente '  for  the  troops  on  the 
eve  of  battle.  A  million  and  a  half  for  the  safeguard 
ing  prisoners  and  wounded. 

189 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

"  One  million  for  Masses  of  Thanksgiving ;  700,494 
ducats  for  secret  service,  etc. 

"  And  one  hundred  millions  for  the  patience  with 
which  I  have  listened  to  the  king,  who  demands  an 
account  from  the  man  who  has  presented  him  with  a 
Kingdom." 

It  seems  that  Gonsalvo  was  one  of  the  greatest  hu 
morists,  as  well  as  captains  of  his  age,  and  the  king  may 
very  well  have  liked  his  fun  no  better  than  his  fame. 
Now  that  he  has  been  dead  nearly  four  hundred  years, 
Ferdinand  would,  if  he  were  living,  no  doubt  join 
Cordova  in  honoring  Gonzalo  Hernandez  de  Aguila 
y  de  Cordova.  After  all  he  was  not  born  in  Cordova 
(as  I  had  supposed  till  an  hour  ago),  but  in  the  little 
city  of  Montilla,  five  stations  away  on  the  railroad  to 
the  Malaga,  and  now  more  noted  for  its  surpassing 
sherry  than  for  the  greatest  soldier  of  his  time.  To 
have  given  its  name  to  Amontillado  is  glory  enough 
for  Montilla,  and  it  must  be  owned  that  Gonzalo  Her 
nandez  de  Aguila  y  de  Montilla  would  not  sound  so 
well  as  the  title  we  know  the  hero  by,  when  we  know 
him  at  all.  There  may  be  some  who  will  say  that 
Cordova  merits  remembrance  less  because  of  him  than 
because  of  Columbus,  who  first  came  to  the  Catholic 
kings  there  to  offer  them  not  a  mere  kingdom,  but  a 
whole  hemisphere.  Cordova  was  then  the  Spanish  head 
quarters  for  the  operations  against  Granada,  and  one 
reads  of  the  fact  with  a  luminous  sense  which  one 
cannot  have  till  one  has  seen  Cordova. 


VIII 

After  our  visits  to  the  mosque  and  the  bridge  and 
the  museum  there  remained  nothing  of  our  forenoon, 

190 


CORDOVA  AND  THE  WAY  THERE 

and  we  gave  the  whole  of  the  earlier  afternoon  to  an 
excursion  which  strangers  are  expected  to  make  into  the 
first  climb  of  hills  to  the  eastward  of  the  city.  The 
road  which  reaches  the  Huerto  de  los  Arcos  is  rather 
smoother  for  driving  than  the  streets  of  Cordova,  but 
the  rain  had  made  it  heavy,  and  we  were  glad  of  our 
good  horses  and  their  owner's  mercy  to  them.  He 
stopped  so  often  to  breathe  them  when  the  ascent  began 
that  we  had  abundant  time  to  note  the  features  of  the 
wayside ;  the  many  villas,  piously  named  for  saints, 
set  on  the  incline,  and  orcharded  about  with  orange 
trees,  in  the  beginning  of  that  measureless  forest  of 
olives  which  has  no  limit  but  the  horizon. 

From  the  gate  to  the  villa  which  we  had  come  to  see 
it  was  a  stiff  ascent  by  terraced  beds  of  roses,  zinneas, 
and  purple  salvia  beside  walls  heavy  with  jasmine  and 
trumpet  creepers,  in  full  bloom,  and  orange  trees,  fruit 
ing  and  flowering  in  their  desultory  way.  Before  the 
villa  we  were  to  see  a  fountain  much  favored  by  our 
guide  who  had  a  passion  for  the  jets  that  played  ball 
with  themselves  as  long  as  the  gardener  let  him  turn 
the  water  on,  and  watched  with  joy  to  see  how  high 
the  balls  would  go  before  slipping  back.  The  fountain 
was  in  a  grotto-like  nook,  where  benches  of  cement 
decked  with  scallop  shells  were  set  round  a  basin  with 
the  figures  of  two  small  boys  in  it  bestriding  that  of  a 
lamb,  all  employed  in  letting  the  water  dribble  from 
their  mouths.  It  was  very  simple-hearted,  as  such 
things  seem  mostly  obliged  to  be,  but  nature  helped 
art  out  so  well  with  a  lovely  abundance  of  leaf  and 
petal  that  a  far  more  exacting  taste  than  ours  must 
have  been  satisfied.  The  garden  was  in  fact  very  pretty, 
though  whether  it  was  worth  fifteen  pesetas  and  three 
hours  coming  to  see  the  reader  must  decide  for  himself 
when  he  does  it.  I  think  it  was,  myself,  and  I  would 

m 


FAMILIAR  SPANISH  TRAVELS 

like  to  be  there  now,  sitting  in  a  shell-covered  cement 
chair  at  the  villa  steps,  and  letting  the  landscape  un 
roll  itself  wonderfully  before  me.  We  were  on  a  shore 
of  that  ocean  of  olives  which  in  southern  Spain  washes 
far  up  the  mountain  walls  of  the  blue  and  bluer  dis 
tances,  and  which  we  were  to  skirt  more  and  more  in 
bay  and  inlet  and  widening  and  narrowing  expanses 
throughout  Andalusia.  Before  we  left  it  we  wearied 
utterly  of  it,  and  in  fact  the  olive  of  Spain  is  not  the 
sympathetic  olive  of  Italy,  though  I  should  think  it 
a  much  more  practical  and  profitable  tree.  It  is  not 
planted  so  much  at  haphazard  as  the  Italian  olive  seems 
to  be ;  its  mass  looks  less  like  an  old  apple  orchard  than 
the  Italian;  its  regular  succession  is  a  march  of  trim 
files  as  far  as  the  horizon  or  the  hillsides,  which  they 
often  climbed  to  the  top.  We  were  in  the  season  of 
the  olive  harvest,  and  throughout  the  month  of  October 
its  nearer  lines  showed  the  sturdy  trees  weighed  down 
by  the  dense  fruit,  sometimes  very  small,  sometimes  as 
large  as  pigeon  eggs.  There  were  vineyards  and  wheat- 
fields  in  that  vast  prospect,  and  certainly  there  were 
towns  and  villages;  but  what  remains  with  me  is  the 
sense  of  olives  and  ever  more  olives,  though  this  may 
be  the  cumulative  effect  of  other  such  prospects  as  vast 
and  as  monotonous. 

While  we  looked  away  and  away,  the  gardener  and 
a  half-grown  boy  were  about  their  labors  that  Sunday 
afternoon  as  if  it  were  a  week-day,  though  for  that 
reason  perhaps  they  were  not  working  very  hard.  They 
seemed  mostly  to  be  sweeping  up  the  fallen  leaves  from 
the  paths,  and  where  the  leaves  had  not  fallen  from 
the  horse-chestnuts  the  boy  was  assisting  nature  by 
climbing  the  trees  and  plucking  them.  We  tried  to 
find  out  why  he  was  doing  this,  but  to  this  day  I  do 
not  know  why  he  was  doing  it,  and  I  must  be  content 

192 


CORDOVA  AND  THE  WAY  THEKE 

to  contribute  the  bare  fact  to  the  science  of  arboricul 
ture.  Possibly  it  was  in  the  interest  of  neatness,  and 
was  a  precaution  against  letting  the  leaves  drop  and 
litter  the  grass.  There  was  apparently  a  passion  for 
neatness  throughout,  which  in  the  villa  itself  mounted 
to  ecstasy.  It  was  in  a  state  to  be  come  and  lived  in 
at  any  moment,  though  I  believe  it  was  occupied  only 
in  the  late  spring  and  the  early  autumn;  in  winter 
the  noble  family  went  to  Madrid,  and  in  summer  to 
some  northern  watering-place.  It  was  rather  small, 
and  expressed  a  life  of  the  minor  hospitalities  when 
the  family  was  in  residence.  It  was  no  place  for  house- 
parties,  and  scarcely  for  week-end  visits,  or  even  for 
neighborhood  dinners.  Perhaps  on  that  terrace  there 
was  afternoon  ice-cream  or  chocolate  for  friends  who 
rode  or  drove  over  or  out;  it  seemed  so  possible  that 
we  had  to  check  in  ourselves  the  cozy  impulse  to  pull 
up  our  shell-covered  cement  chairs  to  some  central 
table  of  like  composition. 

Within,  the  villa  was  of  a  spick-and-spanness  which 
I  feel  that  I  have  not  adequately  suggested;  and  may 
I  say  that  the  spray  of  a  garden-hose  seemed  all  that 
would  be  needed  to  put  the  place  in  readiness  for 
occupation  ?  !N"ot  that  even  this  was  needed  for  that 
interior  of  tile  and  marble,  so  absolutely  apt  for  the 
climate  and  the  use  the  place  would  be  put  to.  In 
vain  we  conjectured,  and  I  hope  not  impertinently,  the 
characters  and  tastes  of  the  absentees ;  the  sole  clue 
that  offered  itself  was  a  bookshelf  of  some  Spanish 
versions  from  authors  scientific  and  metaphysical  to  the 
verge  of  agnosticism.  I  would  not  swear  to  Huxley 
and  Herbert  Spencer  among  the  English  writers,  but 
they  were  such  as  these,  not  in  their  entire  bulk,  but 
in  extracts  and  special  essays.  I  recall  the  slightly 

tilted  row  of  the  neat  paper  copies ;  and  I  wish  I  knew 

193 


FAMILIAR  SPANISH  TRAVELS 

who  it  was  liked  to  read  them.  The  Spanish  have  a 
fondness  for  such  dangerous  ground ;  from  some  of 
their  novels  it  appears  they  feel  it  rather  chic  to  venture 
on  it. 


IX 

We  came  away  from  Cordova  with  a  pretty  good 
conscience  as  to  its  sights.  Upon  the  whole  we  were 
glad  they  were  so  few,  when  once  we  had  made  up 
our  minds  about  the  mosque.  But  now  I  have  found 
too  late  that  we  ought  to  have  visited  the  general  market 
in  the  old  square  where  the  tournaments  used  to  take 
place;  we  ought  to  have  seen  also  the  Chapel  of  the 
Hospital  del  Cardenal,  because  it  was  part  of  the 
mosque  of  Al-Manssour;  we  ought  to  have  verified 
the  remains  of  two  baths  out  of  the  nine  hundred  once 
existing  in  the  Calle  del  Bagno  Alta;  and  we  ought 
finally  to  have  visited  the  remnant  of  a  Moorish  house 
in  the  Plazuela  de  San  ISTicolas,  with  its  gallery  of 
jasper  columns,  now  unhappily  whitewashed.  The 
Campo  Santo  has  an  unsatisfied  claim  upon  my  inter 
est  because  it  was  the  place  where  the  perfervid  Chris 
tian  zealots  used  to  find  the  martyrdom  they  sought 
at  the  hands  of  the  unwilling  Arabs;  and  where,  far 
earlier,  Julius  Csesar  planted  a  plane  tree  after  his 
victory  over  the  forces  of  Pompeii  at  Munda.  The 
tree  no  longer  exists,  but  neither  does  Casar,  or  the 
thirty  thousand  enemies  whom  he  slew  there,  or  the 
sons  of  Pompeii  who  commanded  them.  These  were 
so  near  beating  Caesar  at  first  that  he  ran  among  his 
soldiers  "  asking  them  whether  they  were  not  ashamed 
to  deliver  him  into  the  hands  of  boys."  One  of  the 
boys  escaped,  but  two  days  after  the  fight  the  head 
of  the  elder  was  brought  to  Caesar,  who  was  not  liked 

194 


COKDOVA  AND  THE  WAY  THEEE 

for  the  triumph  he  made  himself  after  the  event  in 
Home,  where  it  was  thought  out  of  taste  to  rejoice 
over  the  calamity  of  his  fellow-countrymen  as  if  they 
had  been  foreign  foes;  the  Romans  do  not  seem  to 
have  minded  his  putting  twenty-eight  thousand  Cor- 
dovese  to  death  for  their  Pompeian  politics.  If  I  had 
remembered  all  this  from  my  Plutarch,  I  should  cer 
tainly  have  gone  to  see  the  place  where  Caesar  planted 
that  plane  tree.  Perhaps  some  kind  soul  will  go  to 
see  it  for  me.  I  myself  do  not  expect  to  return  to 
Cordova. 


IX 
FIRST   DAYS    IK    SEVILLE 

CORDOVA  seemed  to  cheer  up  as  much  as  we  at  our 
going.  We  had  undoubtedly  had  the  better  night's 
sleep;  as  often  as  we  woke  we  found  Cordova  awake, 
walking  and  talking,  and  coughing  more  than  the  night 
before,  probably  from  fresh  colds  taken  in  the  rain. 
From  time  to  time  there  were  church-bells,  variously 
like  tin  pans  and  iron  pots  in  tone,  without  sonorousness 
in  their  noise,  or  such  wild  clangor  as  some  Italian 
church-bells  have.  But  Cordova  had  lived  through  it, 
and  at  the  station  was  lively  with  the  arriving  and  de 
parting  trains.  The  morning  was  not  only  bright;  it 
was  hot,  and  the  place  babbled  with  many  voices.  We 
thought  one  voice  crying  "  Agua,  agua !"  was  a  parrot's 
and  then  we  thought  it  was  a  girl's,  but  really  it  was  a 
boy  with  wfater  for  sale  in  a  stone  bottle.  He  had  not 
a  rose,  white  or  red,  in  his  hair,  but  if  he  had  been  a 
girl,  old  or  young,  he  would  have  had  one,  white  or  red. 
Some  of  the  elder  women  wore  mantillas,  but  these  wore 
flowers  too,  and  were  less  pleasing  than  pathetic  for  it;< 
one  very  massive  matron  was  less  pleasing  and  more 
pathetic  than  the  rest.  Peasant  women  carried  bunches 
of  chickens  by  the  legs,  and  one  had  a  turkey  in  a  rush 
bag  with  a  narrow  neck  to  put  its  head  out  of  for  its 
greater  convenience  in  gobbling.  At  the  door  of  the 
station  a  donkey  tried  to  bite  a  fly  on  its  back ;  but  even 
a  Spanish  donkey  cannot  do  everything.  There  was 

196 


FIRST    DAYS    IN    SEVILLE 

no  attempt  to  cheat  us  in  the  weight  of  our  trunks, 
as  there  often  is  in  Italy,  and  the  mozo  who  put  us 
and  our  hand-bags  into  the  train  was  content  with 
his  reasonable  fee.  As  for  the  pair  of  Civil  Guards 
who  were  to  go  with  us,  they  were  of  an  insurpass- 
able  beauty  and  propriety,  and  we  felt  it  a  peculiar 
honor  when  one  of  them  got  into  the  compartment 
beside  ours. 

We  were  to  take  the  mail-train  to  Seville;  and  in 
Spain  the  correo  is  next  to  the  Sud-Express,  which  is 
the  last  word  in  the  vocabulary  of  Peninsular  railroad 
ing.  Our  correo  had  been  up  all  night  on  the  way  from 
Madrid,  and  our  compartment  had  apparently  been 
used  as  a  bedchamber,  with  moments  of  supper-room. 
It  seemed  to  have  been  occupied  by  a  whole  family; 
there  were  frowsy  pillows  crushed  into  the  corners  of 
the  seats,  and,  though  a  porter  caught  these  away,  the 
cigar  stubs,  and  the  cigarette  ashes  strewing  the  rug 
and  fixed  in  it  with  various  liquids,  as  well  as  some 
scattering  hair-pins,  escaped  his  care.  But  when  it 
was  dried  and  aired  out  by  windows  opened  to  the 
sunny  weather,  it  was  by  no  means  a  bad  compartment. 
The  broad  cushions  were  certainly  cleaner  than  the 
carpet;  and  it  was  something — it  was  a  great  deal — 
to  be  getting  out  of  Cordova  on  any  terms.  Not  that 
Cordova  seems  at  this  distance  so  bad  as  it  seemed  on 
^the  ground.  If  we  could  have  had  the  bright  Monday 
of  our  departure  instead  of  the  rainy  Sunday  of  our 
stay  there  we  might  have  wished  to  stay  longer.  But 
as  it  was  the  four  hours'  run  to  Seville  was  delightful, 
largely  because  it  Was  the  run  from  Cordova. 

We  were  running  at  once  over  a  gentle  ground-swell 
which  rose  and  sank  in  larger  billows  now  and  then, 
and  the  yellow  Guadalquivir  followed  us  all  the  way, 
in  a  valley  that  sometimes  widened  to  the  blue  moun- 

197 


FAMILIAR  SPANISH  TRAVELS 

tains  always  walling  the  horizon.  We  had  first  entered 
Andalusia  after  dark,  and  the  scene  had  now  a  novelty 
little  staled  by  the  distant  view  of  the  afternoon  before. 
The  olive  orchards  then  seen  afar  were  intimately 
realized  more  and  more  in  their  amazing  extent.  None 
of  the  trees  looked  so  old,  so  world-old,  as  certain  trees 
in  the  careless  olive  groves  of  Italy.  They  were  regu 
larly  planted,  and  most  were  in  a  vigorous  middle  life ; 
where  they  were  old  they  were  closely  pollarded;  and 
there  were  young  trees,  apparently  newly  set  out ;  there 
were  holes  indefinitely  waiting  for  others.  These  were 
often,  throughout  Andalusia,  covered  to  their  first  fork 
with  cones  of  earth;  and  we  remained  in  the  dramatic 
superstition  that  this  was  to  protect  them  against  the 
omnivorous  hunger  of  the  goats,  till  we  were  told  that 
it  was  to  save  their  roots  from  being  loosened  by  the 
wind.  The  orchards  filled  the  level  foregrounds  and 
the  hilly  backgrounds  to  the  vanishing-points  of  the 
mountainous  perspectives ;  but  when  I  say  this  I  mean 
the  reader  to  allow  for  wide  expanses  of  pasturage, 
where  lordly  bulls  were  hoarding  themselves  for  the 
feasts  throughout  Spain  which  the  bulls  of  Andalusia 
are  happy  beyond  others  in  supplying.  With  their  de 
voted  families  they  paraded  the  meadows,  black  against 
the  green,  or  stood  in  sharp  arrest,  the  most  character 
istic  accent  of  the  scene.  In  the  farther  rather  than 
the  nearer  distance  there  were  towns,  very  white,  very 
African,  keeping  jealously  away  from  the  stations,  as 
the  custom  of  most  towns  is  in  Spain,  beyond  tHe  wheat- 
lands  which  disputed  the  landscape  witK  the  olive 
orchards. 

One  of  these  towns  lay  white  at  the  base  of  a  hill 
topped  by  a  yellow  Moorish  castle  against  the  blue  sky, 
like  a  subject  waiting  for  its  painter  and  conscious  of 
its  wonderful  adaptation  to  water-color.  The  railroad- 

198 


FIRST    DAYS    IN    SEVILLE 

banks  were  hedged  with  Spanish  bayonet,  and  in  places 
with  cactus  grown  into  trees,  all  knees  and  elbows,  and 
of  a  diabolical  imcouthness.  The  air  was  fresh  and 
springlike,  and  under  the  bright  sun,  which  we  had  al 
ready  felt  hot,  men  were  plowing  the  gray  fields  for 
wheat.  Other  men  were  beginning  their  noonday  lunch, 
which,  with  the  long  nap  to  follow,  would  last  till  three 
o'clock,  and  perhaps  be  rashly  accounted  to  them  for 
sloth  by  the  industrious  tourist  who  did  not  know  that 
their  work  had  begun  at  dawn  and  would  not  end  till 
dusk.  Indolence  may  be  a  vice  of  the  towns  in  Spain, 
but  there  is  no  loafing  in  the  country,  if  I  may  believe 
the  conclusions  of  my  note-book.  The  fields  often 
looked  barren  enough,  and  large  spaces  of  their  surface 
were  covered  by  a  sort  of  ground  palm,  as  it  seemed  to 
be,  though  whether  it  was  really  a  ground  palm  or  not 
I  know  no  more  than  I  know  the  name  or  nature  of 
the  wild  flower  which  looked  an  autumn  crocus,  and 
which  with  other  wild  flowers  fringed  the  whole  course 
of  the  train.  There  was  especially  a  small  yellow 
flower,  star-shaped,  which  we  afterward  learned  was 
called  Todos  Santos,  from  its  custom  of  blooming  at 
All  Saints,  and  which  washed  the  sward  in  the  child 
like  enthusiasm  of  buttercups.  A  fine  white  narcissus 
abounded,  and  clumps  of  a  mauve  flower  which  swung 
its  tiny  bells  over  the  sward  washed  by  the  Todos 
Santos.  There  were  other  flowers,  which  did  what  they 
could  to  brighten  our  way,  all  clinging  to  the  notion 
of  summer,  which  the  weather  continued  to  flatter 
throughout  our  fortnight  in  Seville. 

I  could  not  honestly  say  that  the  stations  or  the 
people  about  them  were  more  interesting  than  in  La 
Mancha.  But  at  one  place,  where  some  gentlemen  in 
linen  jackets  dismounted  with  their  guns,  a  group  of 

men  with  dogs  leashed  in  pairs  and  saddle-horses  be- 

199 


FAMILIAR  SPANISH  TRAVELS 

hind  them,  took  me  with  the  sense  of  something  peculiar 
ly  native  where  everything  was  so  native.  They  were 
slim,  narrow-hipped  young  fellows,  tight-jerkined,  loose- 
trousered,  with  a  sort  of  divided  apron  of  leather  facing 
the  leg  and  coming  to  the  ankle ;  and  all  were  of  a  most 
masterly  Velasquez  coloring  and  drawing.  As  they  stood 
smoking  motionlessly,  letting  the  smoke  drift  from  their 
nostrils,  they  seemed  somehow  of  the  same  make  with 
the  slouching  hounds,  and  they  leaned  forward  together, 
giving  the  hunters  no  visible  or  audible  greeting,  but 
questioning  their  will  with  one  quality  of  gaze.  The 
hunters  moved  toward  them,  but  not  as  if  they  belonged 
together,  or  expected  any  sort  of  demonstration  from 
the  men,  dogs,  and  horses  that  were  of  course  there 
to  meet  them.  As  long  as  our  train  paused,  no  electrify 
ing  spark  kindled  them  to  a  show  of  emotion;  but  it 
would  have  been  interesting  to  see  what  happened  after 
we  left  them  behind;  they  could  not  have  kept  their 
attitude  of  mutual  indifference  much  longer.  These 
peasants,  like  the  Spaniards  everywhere,  were  of  an 
intelligent  and  sagacious  look;  they  only  wanted  a 
chance,  one  must  think,  to  be  a  leading  race.  They  have 
sometimes  an  anxiety  of  appeal  in  their  apathy,  as  if 
they  would  like  to  know  more  than  they  do. 

There  was  some  livelier  thronging  at  the  station 
where  the  train  stopped  for  luncheon,  but  secure  with 
the  pretty  rush-basket  which  the  head  waiter  at  our 
hotel,  so  much  better  than  the  hotel,  had  furnished  us 
at  starting,  we  kept  to  our  car ;  and  there  presently  we 
were  joined  by  a  young  couple  who  were  unmistakably 
a  new  married  couple.  The  man  was  of  a  rich  brown, 
and  the  woman  of  a  dead  white  with  dead  black  hair. 
They  both  might  have  been  better-looking  than  they 
were,  but  apparently  not  better  otherwise,  for  at  Seville 

the  groom  helped  us  out  of  the  car  with  our  hand-bags. 

200 


FIRST    DAYS    IN    SEVILLE 

I  do  not  know  what  polite  offers  from  him  had  already 
brought  out  the  thanks  in  which  our  speech  bewrayed 
us;  but  at  our  outlandish  accents  they  at  once  became 
easier.  They  became  frankly  at  home  with  themselves, 
and  talked  in  their  Andalusian  patter  with  no  fear  of 
being  understood.  I  might,  indeed,  have  been  far  apter 
in  Spanish  without  understanding  their  talk,  for  when 
printed  the  Andalusian  dialect  varies  as  far  from  the 
Castilian  as,  say,  the  Venetian  varies  from  the  Tuscan, 
and  when  spoken,  more.  It  may  then  be  reduced  al 
most  wholly  to  vowel  sounds,  and  from  the  lips  of  some 
speakers  it  is  really  no  more  consonantal  than  if  it  came 
from  the  beaks  of  birds.  They  do  not  lisp  the  soft  c  or 
the  z,  as  the  Castilians  do,  but  hiss  them,  and  lisp  the  s 
instead,  as  the  readerwill  find  amusingly  noted  in  the  Se- 
villian  chapters  of  The  Sister  of  San  Sulpice,  which  are 
the  most  charming  chapters  of  that  most  charming  novel. 
At  the  stations  there  were  sometimes  girls  and  some 
times  boys  with  water  for  sale  from  stone  bottles,  who 
walked  by  the  cars  crying  it;  and  there  were  bits  of 
bright  garden,  or  there  were  flowers  in  pots.  There 
were  also  poor  little  human  flowers,  or  call  them  weeds, 
if  you  will,  that  suddenly  sprang  up  beside  our  win 
dows,  and  moved  their  petals  in  pitiful  prayer  for 
alms.  They  always  sprang  up  on  the  off  side  of  the 
train,  so  that  the  trainmen  could  not  see  them,  but  I 
hope  no  trainman  in  Spain  would  have  had  the  heart  to 
molest  them.  As  a  matter  of  taste  in  vegetation,  how 
ever,  we  preferred  an  occasional  effect  of  mixed  orange 
and  pomegranate  trees,  with  their  perennial  green  and 
their  autumnal  red.  We  were,  in  fact,  so  spoiled  by 
the  profusion  of  these  little  human  flowers,  or  weeds, 
that  we  even  liked  the  change  to  the  dried  stalk  of  an 
old  man,  flowering  at  top  into  a  flat  basket  of  pale- 
pink  shrimps.  He  gave  us  our  first  sight  of  sea-fruit. 

201 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

when  we  had  got,  without  knowing  it,  to  Seville  Junc 
tion.  There  was,  oddly  enough,  no  other  fruit  for  sale 
there;  but  there  was  a  very  agreeable-looking  booth  at 
the  end  of  the  platform  placarded  with  signs  of  Puerto 
Rico  coffee,  cognac,  and  other  drinks;  and  outside  of 
it  there  were  wash-basins  and  clean  towels.  I  do  not 
know  how  an  old  woman  with  a  blind  daughter  made 
herself  effective  in  the  crowd,  which  did  not  seem  much 
preoccupied  with  the  opportunities  of  ablution  and  re 
fection  at  that  booth ;  but  perhaps  she  begged  with  her 
blind  daughter's  help  while  the  crowd  was  busy  in 
assorting  itself  for  Cadiz  and  Seville  and  Malaga  and 
Cordova  and  other  musically  syllabled  mothers  of  his 
tory  and  romance. 


A  few  miles  and  a  few  minutes  more  and  we  were 
in  the  embrace  of  the  loveliest  of  them,  which  was  at 
first  the  clutch  on  the  octroi.  But  the  octroi  at  Seville 
is  not  serious,  and  a  walrus-mustached  old  porter,  who 
looked  like  an  old  American  car-driver  of  the  bearded 
eighteen-sixties,  eased  us — not  very  swiftly,  but  softly 
— through  the  local  customs,  and  then  we  drove  neither 
so  swiftly  nor  so  softly  to  the  hotel,  where  we  had  de 
cided  we  would  have  rooms  on  the  patio.  We  had  still 
to  learn  that  if  there  is  a  patio  in  a  Spanish  hotel  you 
cannot  have  rooms  in  it,  because  they  are  either  in  re 
pair  or  they  are  occupied.  In  the  present  case  they 
were  occupied ;  but  we  could  have  rooms  over  tHe  street, 
which  were  the  same  as  in  the  patio,  and  whicK  were 
perfectly  quiet,  as  we  could  perceive  from  the  trolley- 
cars  grinding  and  squealing  under  their  windows.  The 
manager  (if  that  was  the  quality  of  the  patient  and 

amiable  old  official  who  received  us)  seemed  surprised 

202 


FIRST    DAYS    IN    SEVILLE 

to  see  the  cars  there,  perhaps  because  they  were  so  in 
audible  ;  but  he  said  we  could  have  rooms  in  the  annex, 
fronting  on  the  adjoining  plaza  and  siding  on  an  in 
offensive  avenue  where  there  were  absolutely  no  cars. 
The  interior,  climbing  to  a  lofty  roof  by  a  succession  of 
galleries,  was  hushed  by  four  silent  senoras,  all  in  blac^, 
and  seated  in  mute  ceremony  around  a  table  in  chairs 
from  which  their  little  feet  scarcely  touched  the  marble 
pavement.  Their  quiet  confirmed  the  manager's  as 
surance  of  a  pervading  tranquillity,  and  though  the 
only  bath  in  the  annex  was  confessedly  on  the  ground 
floor,  and  we  were  to  be  two  floors  above,  the  affair 
was  very  simple:  the  chambermaid  would  always  show 
us  where  the  bath  was. 

With  misgiving,  lost  in  a  sense  of  our  helplessness, 
we  tried  to  think  that  the  avenue  under  us  was  then 
quieting  down  with  the  waning  day;  and  certainly  it 
was  not  so  noisy  as  the  plaza,  which  resounded  with  the 
whips  and  quips  of  the  cabmen,  and  gave  no  signs  of 
quiescence.  Otherwise  the  annex  was  very  pleasant, 
and  we  took  the  rooms  shown  us,  hoping  the  best  and 
fearing  the  worst.  Our  fears  were  wiser  than  our 
hopes,  but  we  did  not  know  this,  and  we  went  as  gaily 
as  we  could  for  tea  in  the  patio  of  our  hotel,  where 
a  fountain  typically  trickled  amidst  its  water-plants 
and  a  noiseless  Englishman  at  his  separate  table  al 
most  restored  our  lost  faith  in  a  world  not  wholly 
racket.  rK  young  Spaniard  and  two  young  Spanish 
girls  helped  out  the  illusion  with  their  gentle  move 
ments  and  their  muted  gutturals,  and  we  looked  for 
ward  to  dinner  with  fond  expectation.  To  tell  the 
truth,  the  dinner,  when  we  came  back  to  it,  was  not 
very  good,  or  at  least  not  very  winning,  and  the  next 
night  it  was  no  better,  though  the  head  waiter  had 
then  made  us  so  much  favor  with  himself  as  to  promise 
14  203 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

us  a  side-table  for  the  rest  of  our  stay.  He  was  a  very 
friendly  head  waiter,  and  the  dining-room  was  a  long 
glare  of  the  encaustic  tiling  which  all  Seville  seems 
lined  with,  and  of  every  Moorish  motive  in  the  decora 
tion.  Besides,  there  was  a  young  Scotch  girl,  very  inter 
estingly  pale  and  delicate  of  face,  at  one  of  the  tables, 
and  at  another  a  Spanish  girl  with  the  most  wonderful 
fire-red  hair,  and  there  were  several  miracles  of  the 
beautiful  obesity  which  abounds  in  Spain. 

When  we  returned  to  the  annex  it  did  seem,  for  the 
short  time  we  kept  our  windows  shut,  that  the  man 
ager  had  spoken  true,  and  we  promised  ourselves  a 
tranquil  night,  which,  after  our  two  nights  in  Cordova, 
we  needed  if  we  did  not  merit.  But  we  had  counted 
without  the  spread  of  popular  education  in  Spain. 
Under  our  windows,  just  across  the  way,  there  proved 
to  be  a  school  of  the  "  Royal  Society  of  Friends  of 
their  Country,"  as  the  Spanish  inscription  in  its  front 
proclaimed ;  and  at  dusk  its  pupils,  children  and  young 
people  of  both  sexes,  began  clamoring  for  knowledge  at 
its  doors.  About  ten  o'clock  they  burst  from  them 
again  with  joyous  exultation  in  their  acquirements; 
then,  shortly  after,  every  manner  of  vehicle  began  to 
pass,  especially  heavy  market  wagons  overladen  and 
drawn  by  horses  swarming  with  bells.  Their  succession 
left  scarcely  a  moment  of  the  night  unstunned;  but  if 
ever  a  moment  seemed  to  be  escaping,  there  was  a 
maniacal  bell  in  a  church  near  by  that  clashed  out: 
"  Hello !  Here's  a  bit  of  silence ;  let's  knock  it  on  the 
head!" 

We  went  promptly  the  next  day  to  the  gentle  old 
manager  and  told  him  that  he  had  been  deceived  in 
thinking  he  had  given  us  rooms  on  a  quiet  street,  and 
appealed  to  his  invention  for  something,  for  anything, 

different.     His  invention  had  probably  never  been  put 

204 


FIRST    DAYS    IN    SEVILLE 

to  such  stress  before,  and  he  showed  us  an  excess  of 
impossible  apartments,  which  we  subjected  to  a  con 
sideration  worthy  of  the  greatest  promise  in  them.  Our 
search  ended  in  a  suite  of  rooms  on  the  top  floor,  where 
we  could  have  the  range  of  a  flat  roof  outside  if  we 
wanted;  but  as  the  private  family  living  next  door 
kept  hens,  led  by  a  lordly  turkey,  on  their  roof,  we 
were  sorrowfully  forced  to  forego  our  peculiar  advan 
tage.  Peculiar  we  then  thought  it,  though  we  learned 
afterward  that  poultry-farming  was  not  uncommon  on 
the  flat  roofs  of  Seville,  and  there  is  now  no  telling  how 
we  might  have  prospered  if  we  had  taken  those  rooms 
and  stocked  our  roof  with  Plymouth  Rocks  and  Wyan- 
dottes.  At  the  moment,  however,  we  thought  it  would 
not  do,  and  we  could  only  offer  our  excuses  to  the 
manager,  whose  resources  we  had  now  exhausted,  but 
not  whose  patience,  and  we  parted  with  expressions  of 
mutual  esteem  and  regret. 

Our  own  grief  was  sincerer  in  leaving  behind  us  the 
enthusiastic  chambermaid  of  the  annex  who  had  greeted 
us  with  glad  service,  and  was  so  hopeful  that  when 
she  said  our  doors  should  be  made  to  latch  and  lock  in 
the  morning,  it  was  as  if  they  latched  and  locked  al 
ready.  Her  zeal  made  the  hot  water  she  brought  for 
the  baths  really  hot,  "  Caliente,  caliente"  and  her  voice 
would  have  quieted  the  street  under  our  windows  if 
music  could  have  soothed  it.  At  a  friendly  word  she 
grew  trustful,  and  told  us  how  it  was  hard,  hard  for 
poor  people  in  Seville;  how  she  had  three  dollars  a 
month  and  her  husband  four ;  and  how  they  had  to  toil 
for  it.  When  we  could  not  help  telling  her,  cruelly 
enough,  what  they  singly  and  jointly  earn  in  New  York, 
she  praised  rather  than  coveted  the  happier  chance  im 
possible  to  them.  They  would  like  to  go,  but  they  could 

not  go !    She  was  gay  with  it  all,  and  after  we  had  left 

205 


FAMILIAE    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

the  hotel  and  come  back  for  the  shawl  which  had  been 
forgotten,  she  ran  for  it,  shouting  with  laughter,  as  if 
we  must  see  it  the  great  joke  she  did ;  and  she  took  the 
reward  offered  with  the  self-respect  never  wanting  to 
the  Spanish  poor.  Very  likely  if  I  ransacked  my  mem 
ory  I  might  find  instances  of  their  abusing  those  ad 
vantages  over  the  stranger  which  Providence  puts  in 
the  reach  of  the  native  everywhere;  but  on  the  spur 
of  the  moment,  I  do  not  recall  any.  In  Spain,  where 
a  woman  earns  three  dollars  a  month,  as  in  America 
where  she  earns  thirty,  the  poor  seem  to  abound  in  the 
comparative  virtues  which  the  rich  demand  in  return 
for  the  chances  of  Heaven  which  they  abandon  to  them. 
There  were  few  of  those  rendering  us  service  there 
whom  we  would  not  willingly  have  brought  away  with 
us ;  but  very  likely  we  should  have  found  they  had  the 
defects  of  their  qualities. 

When  we  definitely  turned  our  backs  on  the  potential 
poultry-farm  offered  us  at  our  hotel,  we  found  ourselves 
in  as  good  housing  at  another,  overlooking  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  stately  Plaza  San  Fernando,  with 
its  parallelogram  of  tall  palms,  under  a  full  moon  swim 
ming  in  a  cloudless  heaven  by  night  and  by  day.  By 
day,  of  course,  we  did  not  see  it,  but  the  sun  was  visibly 
there,  rather  blazing  hot,  even  in  mid-October,  and 
showing  more  distinctly  than  the  moon  the  beautiful 
tower  of  the  Giralda  from  the  waist  up,  and  the  shoul 
der  of  the  great  cathedral,  besides  features  of  other 
noble,  though  less  noble,  edifices.  Our  plaza  was  so 
full  of  romantic  suggestion  that  I  am  rather  glad  now 
I  had  no  association  with  it.  I  am  sure  T  could  not 
have  borne  at  the  time  to  know,  as  I  have  only  now 
learned  by  recurring  to  my  Baedeker,  that  in  the  old 
Franciscan  cloister  once  there  had  stood  the  equestrian 

statue  of  the  Comendador  who  dismounts  and  comes 

206 


FIRST    DAYS    IN    SEVILLE 

unbidden  to  the  supper  of  Don  Giovanni  in  the  opera. 
That  was  a  statue  which,  seen  in  my  far  youth,  haunted 
my  nightmares  for  many  a  year,  and  I  am  sure  it  would 
have  kept  me  from  sleep  in  the  conditions,  now  so 
perfect,  of  our  new  housing  if  I  had  known  about  it. 


in 

The  plaza  is  named,  of  course,  for  King  Fernando, 
who  took  Seville  from  the  Moors  six  hundred  years 
ago,  and  was  canonized  for  his  conquests  and  his  vir 
tues.  But  I  must  not  enter  so  rashly  upon  the  history 
of  Seville,  or  forget  the  arrears  of  personal  impression 
which  I  have  to  bring  up.  The  very  drive  from  the 
station  was  full  of  impressions,  from  the  narrow  and 
crooked  streets,  the  houses  of  yellow,  blue,  and  pink 
stucco,  the  flowered  and  fountained  patios  glimpsed 
passingly,  the  half-lengths  of  church-towers,  and  the 
fleeting  facades  of  convents  and  palaces,  all  lovely  in 
the  mild  afternoon  Kght.  These  impressions  soon  be 
came  confluent,  so  that  without  the  constant  witness  of 
our  note-books  I  should  now  find  it  impossible  to  sepa 
rate  them.  If  they  could  be  imparted  to  the  reader 
in  their  complexity,  that  would  doubtless  be  the  ideal, 
though  he  would  not  believe  that  their  confused  pat 
tern  was  a  true  reflex  of  Seville;  so  I  recur  to  the 
record,  which  says  that  the  morning  after  our  arrival 
we  hurried  to  see  the  great  and  beautiful  cathedral.  It 
had  failed,  in  our  approach  the  afternoon  before,  to 
fulfil  the  promise  of  one  of  our  half-dozen  guide-books 
(I  forget  which  one)  that  it  would  seem  to  gather 
Seville  about  it  as  a  hen  gathers  "her  chickens,  but  its 
vastness  grew  upon  us  with  every  moment  of  our 

more  intimate  acquaintance.     Our  acquaintance  quick- 

207 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

ly  ripened  into  the  affectionate  friendship  which  be 
came  a  tender  regret  when  we  looked  our  last  upon 
it;  and  vast  as  it  was,  it  was  never  too  large  for  our 
embrace.  I  doubt  if  there  was  a  moment  in  our  fort 
night's  devotion  when  we  thought  the  doughty  canons, 
its  brave-spoken  founders,  "  mad  to  have  undertaken  it," 
as  they  said  they  expected  people  to  think,  or  any 
moment  when  we  did  not  revere  them  for  imagining  a 
temple  at  once  so  beautiful  and  so  big. 

Our  first  visit  was  redeemed  from  the  commonplace 
of  our  duty-round  of  the  side-chapels  by  two  things 
which  I  can  remember  without  the  help  of  my  notes. 
One,  and  the  great  one,  was  Murillo's  "  Vision  of  St. 
Anthony,"  in  which  the  painter  has  most  surpassed  him 
self,  and  which  not  to  have  seen,  Gautier  says,  is  not  to 
have  known  the  painter.  It  is  so  glorious  a  masterpiece, 
with  the  Child  joyously  running  down  from  the  cluster 
ing  angels  toward  the  kneeling  saint  in  the  nearest  cor 
ner  of  the  foreground,  that  it  was  distinctly  a  moment 
before  I  realized  that  the  saint  had  once  been  cut  out 
of  his  corner  and  sent  into  an  incredible  exile  in  Amer 
ica,  and  then  munificently  restored  to  it,  though  the 
seam  in  the  canvas  only  too  literally  attested  the  in 
cident.  I  could  not  well  say  how  this  fact  then  en 
hanced  the  interest  of  the  painting,  and  then  how  it 
ceased  from  the  consciousness,  which  it  must  always 
recur  to  with  any  remembrance  of  it.  If  one  could 
envy  wealth  its  chance  of  doing  a  deed  of  absolute 
good,  here  was  the  occasion,  and  I  used  it.  I  did  envy 
the  mind,  along  with  the  money,  to  do  that  great 
thing.  Another  great  thing  which  still  more  swelled  my 
American  heart  and  made  it  glow  with  patriotic  pride 
was  the  monument  to  Columbus,  which  our  suffering 
his  dust  to  be  translated  from  Havana  has  made  pos 
sible  in  Seville.  There  may  be  other  noble  results  of 

208 


FIRST    DAYS    IN    SEVILLE 

our  war  on  Spain  for  the  suzerainty  of  Cuba  and  the 
conquest  of  Puerto  Rico  and  the  Philippines,  but  there 
is  none  which  matches  in  moral  beauty  the  chance  it 
won  us  for  this  Grand  Consent.  I  suppose  those  effigies 
of  the  four  Spanish  realms  of  Castile,  Leon,  Aragon, 
and  Navarre,  which  bear  the  coffin  of  the  discoverer 
in  stateliest  processional  on  their  shoulders,  may  be 
censured  for  being  too  boldly  superb,  too  almost 
swagger,  but  I  will  not  be  the  one  to  censure  them. 
They  are  painted  the  color  of  life,  and  they  advance 
colossally,  royal-robed  and  mail-clad,  as  if  marching  to 
some  proud  music,  and  would  tread  you  down  if  you 
did  not  stand  aside.  It  is  perhaps  not  art,  but  it  is 
magnificent;  nothing  less  stupendously  Spanish  would 
have  sufficed;  and  I  felt  that  the  magnanimity  which 
had  yielded  Spain  this  swelling  opportunity  had  made 
America  her  equal  in  it. 

We  went  to  the  cathedral  the  first  morning  after 
our  arrival  in  Seville,  because  we  did  not  know  how 
soon  we  might  go  away,  and  then  we  went  every  morn 
ing  or  every  afternoon  of  our  fortnight  there.  Habitu 
ally  we  entered  by  that  Gate  of  Pardon  which  in  former 
times  had  opened  the  sanctuary  to  any  wickedness  short 
of  heresy ;  but,  as  our  need  of  refuge  was  not  pressing, 
we  wearied  of  the  Gate  of  Pardon,  with  its  beautiful 
Saracenic  arch  converted  to  Christianity  by  the  Renais 
sance  bas-relief  obliterating  the  texts  from  the  Koran. 
We  tried  to  form  the  habit  of  going  in  by  other  gates, 
but  the  Gate  of  Pardon  finally  prevailed;  there  was 
always  a  gantlet  of  cabmen  to  be  run  beside  it,  which 
brought  our  sins  home  to  us.  It  led  into  the  badly 
paved  Court  of  Oranges,  where  the  trees  seem  planted 
haphazard  and  where  there  used  also  to  be  fountains. 
Gate  and  court  are  remnants  of  the  mosque,  patterned 

upon  that  of  Cordova  by  one  of  the  proud  Moorish  kings 

209 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

of  Seville,  and  burned  by  tbe  Normans  when  they  took 
and  sacked  his  city.  His  mosque  had  displaced  the 
early  Christian  basilica  of  San  Vicente,  which  the  still 
earlier  temple  to  Venus  Salanibo  had  become.  Then, 
after  the  mosque  was  rebuilt,  the  good  San  Fernando 
in  his  turn  equipped  it  with  a  Gothic  choir  and  chapels 
and  turned  it  into  the  cathedral,  which  was  worn  out 
with  pious  uses  when  the  present  edifice  was  founded, 
in  their  folie  des  grandeurs,  by  those  glorious  madmen 
in  the  first  year  of  the  fifteenth  century. 


IV 

Little  of  this  learning  troubled  me  in  my  visits  to 
the  cathedral,  or  even  the  fact  that,  next  to  St.  Peter's, 
it  was  the  largest  church  in  the  world.  It  was  sufficient 
to  itself  by  mere  force  of  architectural  presence,  with 
out  the  help  of  incidents  or  measurements.  It  was  a 
city  in  itself,  with  a  community  of  priests  and  sacris 
tans  dwelling  in  it,  and  a  floating  population  of  sight 
seers  and  worshipers  always  passing  through  it.  The 
first  morning  we  had  submitted  to  make  the  round 
of  the  chapels,  patiently  paying  to  have  each  of  them 
unlocked  and  wearily  wondering  at  their  wonders,  but 
only  sympathizing  really  with  the  stern  cleric  who 
showed  the  ceremonial  vestments  and  jewels  of  the 
cathedral,  and  whose  bitter  face  expressed,  or  seemed 
to  express,  abhorrence  of  our  whole  trivial  tourist  tribe. 
After  that  morning  we  took  our  curiosity  into  our  own 
keeping  and  looked  at  nothing  that  did  not  interest  us, 
and  we  were  interested  most  in  those  fellow-beings  who 
kept  coming  and  going  all  day  long. 

Chiefly,  of  course,  they  were  women.     In  Catholic 

countries  women  have  either  more  sins  to  be  forgiven 

210 


IN    ATTITUDES    OF    SILENT   DEVOTION 


FIRST    DAYS    IN    SEVILLE 

than  the  men,  or  else  they  are  sorrier  for  them;  and 
here,  whether  there  was  service  or  not,  they  were 
dropped  everywhere  in  veiled  and  motionless  prayer. 
In  Seville  the  law  of  the  mantilla  is  rigorously  enforced. 
If  a  woman  drives,  she  may  wear  a  hat;  but  if  she 
walks,  she  must  wear  a  mantilla  under  pain  of  being 
pointed  at  by  the  finger  of  scorn.  If  she  is  a  young 
girl  she  may  wear  colors  with  it  (a  cheerful  blue  seems 
the  favorite),  but  by  far  the  greater  number  came  to 
the  cathedral  in  complete  black.  Those  somber  figures 
which  clustered  before  chapel,  or  singly  dotted  the  pave 
ment  everywhere,  flitted  in  and  out  like  shadows  in  the 
perpetual  twilight.  For  far  the  greater  number,  their 
coming  to  the  church  was  almost  their  sole  escape  into 
the  world.  They  sometimes  met  friends,  and  after  a 
moment,  or  an  hour,  of  prayer  they  could  cheer  their 
hoar  '  with  neighborly  gossip.  But  for  the  greater  part 
they  appeared  and  disappeared  silently  and  swiftly, 
and  left  the  spectator  to  helpless  conjecture  of  their 
history.  Many  of  them  would  have  first  met  their 
husbands  in  the  cathedral  when  they  prayed,  or  when 
they  began  to  look  around  to  see  who  was  looking  at 
them.  It  might  have  been  their  trysting-place,  safe 
guarding  them  in  their  lovers'  meetings,  and  after  mar 
riage  it  had  become  their  social  world,  when  their  hus 
bands  left  them  for  the  clubs  or  the  cafes.  They  could 
not  go  at  night,  of  course,  except  to  some  special  func 
tion,  but  they  could  come  by  day  as  often  as  they  liked. 
I  do  not  suppose  that  the  worshipers  I  saw  habitually 
united  love  or  friendship  with  their  devotions  in  the 
cathedral,  but  some  certainly  joined  business  with  de 
votion;  at  a  high  function  one  day  an  American  girl 
felt  herself  sharply  nudged  in  the  side,  and  when  she 
turned  she  found  the  palm  of  her  kneeling  neighbor 
stretched  toward  her.  They  must  all  have  had  their 

211 


FAMILIAE    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

parish  churches  besides  the  cathedral,  and  a  devotee 
might  make  the  day  a  social  whirl  by  visiting  one 
shrine  after  another.  But  I  do  not  think  that  many 
do.  The  Spanish  women  are  of  a  domestic  genus,  and 
are  expected  to  keep  at  home  by  the  men  who  expect 
to  keep  abroad. 

I  do  not  know  just  how  it  is  in  the  parish  churches ; 
they  must  each  have  its  special  rite,  which  draws  and 
holds  the  frequenter ;  but  the  cathedral  constantly  offers 
a  drama  of  irresistible  appeal.  We  non-Catholics  can 
feel  this  even  at  the  distance  to  which  our  Protestant 
ism  has  remanded  us,  and  at  your  first  visit  to  the 
Seville  cathedral  during  mass  you  cannot  help  a  mo 
ment  of  recreant  regret  when  you  wish  that  a  part 
in  the  mystery  enacting  was  your  birthright.  The 
esthetic  emotion  is  not  denied  you;  the  organ-tide  that 
floods  the  place  bears  you  on  it,  too;  the  priests  per 
form  their  rites  before  the  altar  for  you;  they  come 
and  go,  they  bow  and  kneel,  for  you ;  the  censer  swings 
and  smokes  for  you;  the  little  wicked-eyed  choir-boys 
and  mischievous-looking  acolytes  suppress  their  natures 
in  your  behalf  as  much  as  if  you  were  a  believer,  or 
perhaps  more.  The  whole  unstinted  hospitality  of  the 
service  is  there  for  you,  as  well  as  for  the  children  of 
the  house,  and  the  heart  must  be  rude  and  the  soul 
ungrateful  that  would  refuse  it.  For  my  part,  I  ac 
cepted  it  as  far  as  I  knew  how,  and  when  I  left  the 
worshipers  on  their  knees  and  went  tiptoeing  from  pic 
ture  to  picture  and  chapel  to  chapel,  it  was  with  shame 
for  the  unscrupulous  sacristan  showing  me  about,  and 
I  felt  that  he,  if  not  I,  ought  to  be  put  out  and  not 
allowed  back  till  the  function  was  over.  I  call  him 
sacristan  at  a  venture;  but  there  were  several  kinds  of 
guides  in  the  cathedral,  some  in  the  livery  of  the  place 

and  some  in  civil  dress,  willing  to  supplement  our  hotel 

212 


FIKST    DAYS    IN    SEVILLE 

interpreter,  or  lying  in  wait  for  us  when  we  came  alone. 
I  wish  now  I  had  taken  them  all,  but  at  the  time  they 
tired  me,  and  I  denied  them. 

Though  not  a  day  passed  but  we  saw  it,  I  am  not  able 
to  say  what  the  cathedral  was  like.  The  choir  was 
planted  in  the  heart  of  it,  as  it  might  be  a  celestial 
refuge  in  that  forest  of  mighty  pillars,  as  great  in 
girth  as  the  giant  redwoods  of  California,  and  climbing 
to  a  Gothic  firmament  horizoned  round  as  with  sunset 
light  from  near  a  hundred  painted  windows.  The 
chapels  on  each  side,  the  most  beautiful  in  Spain, 
abound  in  riches  of  art  and  pious  memorials,  with  chief 
among  them  the  Royal  Chapel,  in  the  prow,  as  it  were, 
of  the  ship  which  the  cathedral  has  been  likened  to, 
keeping  the  bones  not  only  of  the  sainted  hero,  King 
Fernando,  but  also,  among  others,  the  bones  of  Peter 
the  Cruel,  and  of  his  unwedded  love,  Maria  de  Padilla, 
far  too  good  for  Peter  in  life,  if  not  quite  worthy  of 
San  Fernando  in  death.  You  can  see  the  saint's  body 
on  certain  dates  four  times  a  year,  when,  as  your 
Baedeker  will  tell  you,  "  the  troops  of  the  garrison 
march  past  and  lower  their  colors  "  outside  the  cathe 
dral.  We  were  there  on  none  of  these  dates,  and,  far 
more  regretably,  not  on  the  day  of  Corpus  Christi,  when 
those  boys  whose  effigies  in  sculptured  and  painted  wood 
we  had  seen  in  the  museum  at  Valladolid  pace  in  their 
mystic  dance  before  the  people  at  the  opposite  portal 
of  the  cathedral.  But  I  appoint  any  reader,  so  minded, 
to  go  and  witness  the  rite  some  springtime  for  me. 
There  is  no  hurry,  for  it  is  destined  to  endure  through 
the  device  practised  in  defeating  the  pope  who  pro 
posed  to  abolish  it.  He  ordained  that  it  should  con 
tinue  only  as  long  as  the  boys'  actual  costumes  lasted; 
but  by  renewing  these  carefully  wherever  they  began  to 

wear  out,  they  have  become  practically  imperishable. 

213 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 


If  we  missed  this  attraction  of  the  cathedral,  we  had 
the  high  good  fortune  to  witness  another  ceremony  pe 
culiar  to  it,  but  perhaps  less  popularly  acceptable.  The 
building  had  often  suffered  from  earthquakes,  and  on 
the  awful  day,  dies  irce,  of  the  great  Lisbon  earthquake, 
during  mass  and  at  the  moment  of  the  elevation  of  the 
Host,  when  the  worshipers  were  on  their  knees,  there 
came  such  a  mighty  shock  in  sympathy  with  the 
far  -  oif  cataclysm  that  the  people  started  to  their 
feet  and  ran  out  of  the  cathedral.  If  the  priests 
ran  after  them,  as  soon  as  the  apparent  danger  was 
past  they  led  the  return  of  their  flock  and  resumed  the 
interrupted  rite.  It  was,  of  course,  by  a  miracle  that 
the  temple  was  spared,  and  when  it  was  realized  how 
scarcely  Seville  had  escaped  the  fate  of  Lisbon  it  was 
natural  that  the  event  should  be  dramatized  in  a  per 
petual  observance.  Every  year  now,  on  the  1st  of  No 
vember,  the  clergy  leave  the  cathedral  at  a  chosen  mo 
ment  of  the  mass,  with  much  more  stateliness  than  in 
the  original  event,  and  lead  the  people  out  of  one  portal, 
to  return  with  them  by  another  for  the  conclusion  of  the 
ceremonial. 

We  waited  long  for  the  climax,  but  at  last  we  almost 
missed  it  through  the  overeagerness  of  the  guide  I  had 
chosen  out  of  many  that  petitioned.  He  was  so  politely, 
so  f orbearingly  insistent  in  his  offer  to  see  that  we  were 
vigilantly  cared  for,  that  I  must  have  had  a  heart  harder 
than  Peter  the  CruePs  to  have  denied  him,  and  he 
planted  us  at  the  most  favorable  point  for  the  function 
in  the  High  Chapel,  with  instructions  which  portal  to 
hurry  to  when  the  movement  began,  and  took  his  peseta 
and  went  his  way.  Then,  while  we  confidingly  waited, 

214 


THE    CATHEDRAL    AND    TOWER    OF    THE    GIRALDA 


FIRST    DAYS    IN    SEVILLE 

he  came  rushing  back  and  with  a  great  sweep  of  his 
hat  wafted  us  to  the  door  which  he  had  said  the  pro 
cession  would  go  out  by,  but  which  he  seemed  to  have 
learned  it  would  come  in  by,  and  we  were  saved  from 
what  had  almost  been  his  fatal  error.  I  forgave  him 
the  more  gladly  because  I  could  rejoice  in  his  returning 
to  repair  his  error,  although  he  had  collected  his  money ; 
and  with  a  heart  full  of  pride  in  his  verification  of  my 
theory  of  the  faithful  Spanish  nature,  I  gave  myself 
to  the  shining  gorgeousness  of  the  procession  that  ad 
vanced  chanting  in  the  blaze  of  the  Sevillian  sun.  There 
was  every  rank  of  clergy,  from  the  archbishop  down, 
in  robes  of  ceremonial,  but  I  am  unable  honestly  to 
declare  the  admiration  for  their  splendor  which  I  would 
have  willingly  felt.  The  ages  of  faith  in  which  those 
vestments  were  designed  were  apparently  not  the  ages 
of  taste ;  yet  it  was  the  shape  of  the  vestments  and  not 
the  color  which  troubled  the  eye  of  unfaith,  if  not  of 
taste.  The  archbishop  in  crimson  silk,  with  his  train 
borne  by  two  acolytes,  the  canons  in  their  purple,  the 
dean  in  his  gold-embroidered  robes,  and  the  priests  and 
choristers  in  their  black  robes  and  white  surplices  richly 
satisfied  it;  and  if  some  of  the  clerics  were  a  little 
frayed  and  some  of  the  acolytes  were  spotted  with  the 
droppings  of  the  candles,  these  were  details  which  one 
remembered  afterward  and  that  did  not  matter  at  the 
time. 

When  the  procession  was  housed  again,  we  went  off 
and  forgot  it  in  the  gardens  of  the  Alcazar.  But  I 
must  not  begin  yet  on  the  gardens  of  the  Alcazar.  We 
went  to  them  every  day,  as  we  did  to  the  cathedral,  but 
we  did  not  see  them  until  our  second  morning  in  Seville. 
We  gave  what  was  left  from  the  first  morning  in  the 
cathedral  to  a  random  exploration  of  the  streets  and 
places  of  the  city.  There  was,  no  doubt,  everywhere 

215 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

some  touch  of  the  bravery  of  our  square  of  San  Fer 
nando,  where  the  public  windows  were  hung  with  crim 
son  tapestries  and  brocades  in  honor  of  St.  Raphael; 
but  his  holidaj  did  not  make  itself  molestively  felt  in 
the  city's  business  or  pleasure.  Where  we  could  drive 
we  drove,  and  where  we  must  we  walked,  and  we  walked 
of  course  through  the  famous  Calle  de  las  Sierpes,  be 
cause  no  one  drives  there.  As  a  rule  no  woman  walks 
there,  and  naturally  there  were  many  women  walking 
there,  under  the  eyes  of  the  popular  cafes  and  aristo 
cratic  clubs  which  principally  abound  in  Las  Sierpes, 
for  it  is  also  the  street  of  the  principal  shops,  though 
it  is  not  very  long  and  is  narrower  than  many  other 
streets  of  Seville.  It  has  its  name  from  so  commonplace 
an  origin  as  the  sign  over  a  tavern  door,  with  some 
snakes  painted  on  it;  but  if  the  example  of  sinuosity 
had  been  set  it  by  prehistoric  serpents,  there  were  scores 
of  other  streets  which  have  bettered  its  instruction. 
There  were  streets  that  crooked  away  everywhere,  not 
going  anywhere,  and  breaking  from  time  to  time  into 
irregular  angular  spaces  with  a  church  or  a  convent  or 
a  nobleman's  house  looking  into  them. 


VI 


The  noblemen's  houses  often  showed  a  severely  simple 
f  agade  to  the  square  or  street,  and  hid  their  inner  glories 
with  what  could  have  been  fancied  a  haughty  reserve 
if  it  had  not  been  for  the  frankness  with  which  they 
opened  their  patios  to  the  gaze  of  the  stranger,  who, 
when  he  did  not  halt  his  carriage  before  them,  could 
enjoy  their  hospitality  from  a  sidewalk  sometimes  eigh 
teen  inches  wide.  The  passing  tram-car  might  grind 
him  against  the  tall  grilles  which  were  the  only  barriers 

216 


FIRST    DAYS    IN    SEVILLE 

to  the  patios,  but  otherwise  there  would  be  nothing  to 
spoil  his  enjoyment  of  those  marble  floors  and  tiled  walls 
and  fountains  potted  round  with  flowering  plants.  In 
summer  he  could  have  seen  the  family  life  there;  and 
people  who  are  of  such  oriental  seclusion  otherwise  will 
sometimes  even  suffer  the  admiring  traveler  to  come  as 
well  as  look  within.  But  one  who  would  not  press  their 
hospitality  so  far  could  reward  his  forbearance  by  find 
ing  some  of  the  patios  too  new-looking,  with  rather  a 
glare  from  their  tiles  and  marbles,  their  painted  iron 
pillars,  and  their  glass  roofs  which  the  rain  comes 
through  in  the  winter.  The  ladies  sit  and  sew  there, 
or  talk,  if  they  prefer,  and  receive  their  friends,  and 
turn  night  into  day  in  the  fashion  of  climates  where 
they  are  so  easily  convertible.  The  patio  is  the  place 
of  that  peculiarly  Spanish  rite,  the  teriulia,  and  the 
family  nightly  meets  its  next  of  kin  and  then  its  nearer 
and  farther  friends  there  with  that  Latin  regularity 
which  may  also  be  monotony.  One  patio  is  often  much 
like  another,  though  none  was  perhaps  of  so  much  public 
interest  as  the  patio  of  the  lady  who  loved  a  bull-fighter 
and  has  made  her  patio  a  sort  of  shrine  to  him.  The 
famous  espada  perished  in  his  heroic  calling,  no  worse 
if  no  better  than  those  who  saw  him  die,  and  now  his 
bust  is  in  plain  view,  with  a  fit  inscription  recognizing 
his  worth  and  prowess,  and  with  the  heads  of  some  of 
the  bulls  he  slew. 

Under  that  clement  sky  the  elements  do  not  waste 
the  works  of  man  as  elsewhere,  and  many  of  the  houses 
of  Seville  are  said  to  be  such  as  the  Moors  built  there. 
We  did  not  know  them  from  the  Christian  houses ;  but 
there  are  no  longer  any  mosques,  while  in  our  wander 
ings  we  had  the  pretty  constant  succession  of  the  con 
vents  which,  when  they  are  still  in  the  keeping  of  their 

sisterhoods  and  brotherhoods,  remain  monuments  of  the 

217 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

medieval  piety  of  Spain ;  or,  when  they  are  suppressed 
and  turned  to  secular  uses,  attest  the  recurrence  of  her 
modern  moods  of  revolution  and  reform.  It  is  to  one 
of  these  that  Seville  owes  the  stately  Alameda  de 
Hercules,  a  promenade  covering  the  length  and  breadth 
of  aforetime  convent  gardens,  which  you  reach  from  the 
Street  of  the  Serpents  by  the  Street  of  the  Love  of 
God,  and  are  then  startled  by  the  pagan  presence  of 
two  mighty  columns  lifting  aloft  the  figures  of  Csesar 
and  of  the  titular  demigod.  Statues  and  pillars  are 
alike  antique,  and  give  you  a  moment  of  the  Eternal 
City  the  more  intense  because  the  promenade  is  of  an 
unkempt  and  broken  surface,  like  the  Cow-field  which 
the  Roman  Forum  used  to  be.  Baedeker  calls  it  shady, 
and  I  dare  say  it  is  shady,  but  I  do  not  remember  the 
trees — only  those  glorious  columns  climbing  the  sum 
mer  sky  of  the  Andalusian  autumn,  and  proclaiming 
the  imperishable  memory  of  the  republic  that  conquered 
and  the  empire  that  ruled  the  world,  and  have  never 
loosed  their  hold  upon  it.  We  were  rather  newly  from 
the  grass-grown  ruin  of  a  Roman  town  in  Wales,  and 
in  this  other  Iberian  land  we  were  always  meeting  the 
witnesses  of  the  grandeur  which  no  change  short  of 
some  universal  sea  change  can  wholly  sweep  from  the 
earth.  Before  it  Goth  and  Arab  shrink,  with  all  their 
works,  into  the  local  and  provisional;  Rome  remains 
for  all  time  imperial  and  universal. 

To  descend  from  this  high-horsed  reflection,  as  I 
must,  I  have  to  record  that  there  did  not  seem  to  be 
so  many  small  boys  in  Seville  as  in  the  Castillian  cap 
itals  we  had  visited ;  in  the  very  home  of  the  bull-feast 
we  did  not  see  one  mimic  corrida  given  by  the  torreros 
of  the  future.  Not  even  in  the  suburb  of  Triana,  where 

the  small  boys  again  consolingly  superabounded,  was  the 

218 


ANCIENT    ROMAN     COLUMNS    LIFTING     ALOFT    THE     FIGURES     OF 
HERCULES    AND    CAESAR 


FIRST    DAYS    IN    SEVILLE 

great  national  game  played  among  the  wheels  and  hoofs 
of  the  dusty  streets  to  which  we  crossed  the  Guadal 
quivir  that  afternoon.  To  be  sure,  we  were  so  taken 
with  other  things  that  a  boyish  bull-feast  might  have 
rioted  unnoticed  under  our  horses'  very  feet,  especially 
on  the  long  bridge  which  gives  you  the  far  upward 
and  downward  stretch  of  the  river,  so  simple  and  quiet 
and  empty  above,  so  busy  and  noisy  and  thronged  with 
shipping  below.  I  suppose  there  are  lovelier  rivers 
than  that — we  ourselves  are  known  to  brag  of  our  Phar- 
par  and  Abana — but  I  cannot  think  of  anything  more 
nobly  beautiful  than  the  Guadalquivir  resting  at  peace 
in  her  bed,  where  she  has  had  so  many  bad  dreams  of 
Carthaginian  and  Roman  and  Gothic  and  Arab  and 
Norman  invasion.  Now  her  waters  redden,  for  the 
time  at  least,  only  from  the  scarlet  hulls  of  the 
tramp  steamers  lying  in  long  succession  beside  the 
shore  where  the  ga-rdens  of  the  Delicias  were  waiting  to 
welcome  us  that  afternoon  to  our  first  sight  of  the  pride 
and  fashion  of  Seville.  I  never  got  enough  of  the  brave 
color  of  those  tramp  steamers ;  and  in  thinking  of  them 
as  English,  Norse,  French,  and  Dutch,  fetching  or 
carrying  their  cargoes  over  those  war-worn,  storied 
waters,  I  had  some  finer  thrills  than  in  dwelling  on  the 
Tower  of  Gold  which  rose  from  the  midst  of  them.  It 
was  built  in  the  last  century  of  the  Moorish  dominion 
to  mark  the  last  point  to  which  the  gardens  of  the 
Moorish  palace  of  the  'Alcazar  could  stretch,  but  they 
were  long  ago  obliterated  behind  it ;  and  though  it  was 
so  recent,  no  doubt  it  would  have  had  its  pathos  if  I 
could  ever  have  felt  pity  for  the  downfall  of  the  Moslem 
power  in  Spain.  As  it  was,  I  found  the  tramp  steamers 
more  moving,  and  it  was  these  that  my  eye  preferably 
sought  whenever  I  crossed  the  Triana  bridge. 
15  219 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TRAVELS 


VII 


We  were  often  crossing  it  on  one  errand  or  other,  but 
now  we  were  especially  going  to  see  the  gipsy  quarter 
of  Seville,  which  disputes  with  that  of  Granada  the 
infamy  of  the  loathsomest  purlieu  imaginable.  Per 
haps  because  it  was  so  very  loathsome,  I  would  not 
afterward  visit  the  gipsy  quarter  in  Granada,  and  if 
such  a  thing  were  possible  I  would  willingly  unvisit 
the  gipsy  quarter  of  Seville.  All  Triana  is  pretty 
squalid,  though  it  has  merits  and  charms  to  which  I 
will  try  eventually  to  be  just,  and  I  must  even  now 
advise  the  reader  to  visit  the  tile  potteries  there.  If 
he  has  our  good-fortune  he  may  see  in  the  manager  of 
one  a  type  of  that  fusion  of  races  with  which  Spain 
long  so  cruelly  and  vainly  struggled  after  the  fall  of 
the  last  Moorish  kingdom.  He  was  beautifully  lean 
and  clean  of  limb,  and  of  a  grave  gentleness  of  man 
ner;  his  classically  regular  face  was  as  swarthy  as  the 
darkest  mulatto's,  but  his  quiet  eyes  were  gray.  I  car 
ried  the  sense  of  his  fine  decency  with  me  when  we 
drove  away  from  his  warerooms,  and  suddenly  whirled 
round  the  corner  of  the  street  into  the  gipsy  quar 
ter,  and  made  it  my  prophylactic  against  the  human 
noisomeness  which  instantly  beset  our  course.  Let  no 
Romany  Rye  romancing  Barrow,  or  other  fond  fibbing 
sentimentalist,  ever  pretend  to  me  hereafter  that  those 
persistent  savages  have  even  the  ridiculous  claim  of  the 
£Torth  American  Indians  to  the  interest  of  the  civilized 
man,  except  as  something  to  be  morally  and  physically 
scoured  and  washed  up,  and  drained  and  fumigated, 
and  treated  with  insecticides  and  put  away  in  moth 
balls.  Our  own  settled  order  of  things  is  not  agreeable 
at  all  points ;  it  reeks  and  it  smells,  especially  in  Spain, 

220 


FIRST    DAYS    IN    SEVILLE 

when  you  get  down  to  its  lower  levels;  but  it  does  not 
assail  the  senses  with  such  rank  offense  as  smites  them 
in  the  gipsy  quarter  with  sights  and  sounds  and  odors 
which  to  eye  and  ear,  as  well  as  nose,  were  all  stenches. 

Low  huts  lined  the  street,  which  swarmed  at  our 
coming  with  ragged  children  running  beside  us  and 
after  us  and  screaming,  "  Minny,  mooney,  money!" 
in  a  climax  of  what  they  wanted.  Men  leaned  against 
the  door-posts  and  stared  motionless,  and  hags,  lean 
and  fat,  sat  on  the  thresholds  and  wished  to  tell  our 
fortunes;  younger  women  ranged  the  sidewalks  and 
offered  to  dance.  They  all  had  flowers  in  their  hair, 
and  some  were  of  a  horrible  beauty,  especially  one  in  a 
green  waist,  with  both  white  and  red  flowers  in  her 
dusky  locks.  Down  the  middle  of  the  road  a  troop  of 
children,  some  blond,  but  mostly  black,  tormented  a 
hapless  ass  colt;  and  we  hurried  away  as  fast  as  our 
guide  could  persuade  our  cabman  to  drive.  But  the 
gipsy  quarter  had  another  street  in  reserve  which  made 
us  sorry  to  have  left  the  first.  It  paralleled  the  river, 
and  into  the  center  of  it  every  manner  of  offal  had  been 
cast  from  the  beginning  of  time  to  reek  and  fester  and 
juicily  ripen  and  rot  in  unspeakable  corruption.  It 
was  such  a  thoroughfare  as  Dante  might  have  imagined 
in  his  Hell,  if  people  in  his  time  had  minded  such 
horrors;  but  as  it  was  we  could  only  realize  that  it 
was  worse  than  infernal,  it  was  medieval,  and  that  we 
were  driving  in  such  putrid  foulness  as  the  gilded 
carriages  of  kings  and  queens  and  the  prancing  steeds 
and  palfreys  of  knights  and  ladies  found  their  way 
through  whenever  they  went  abroad  in  the  picturesque 
and  romantic  Middle  Ages.  I  scarcely  remember  now 
how  we  got  away  and  down  to  the  decent  waterside,  and 

then  by  the  helpful  bridge  to  the  other  shore  of  the 

221 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

Guadalquivir,  painted  red  with  the  reflections  of  those 
consoling  tramp  steamers. 

After  that  abhorrent  home  of  indolence,  which  its 
children  never  left  except  to  do  a  little  fortune-telling 
and  mule  and  donkey  trading,  eked  out  with  theft  in 
the  country  round,  any  show  of  honest  industry  looked 
wholesome  and  kind.  I  rejoiced  almost  as  much  in  the 
machinery  as  in  the  men  who  were  loading  the  steamers ; 
even  the  huge  casks  of  olives,  which  were  working  from 
the  salt-water  poured  into  them  and  frothing  at  the 
bung  in  great  white  sponges  of  spume,  might  have  been 
examples  of  toil  by  which  those  noisome  vagabonds 
could  well  have  profited.  But  now  we  had  come  to 
see  another  sort  of  leisure — the  famous  leisure  of  for 
tune  and  fashion  driving  in  the  Delicias,  but  perhaps 
never  quite  fulfilling  the  traveler's  fond  ideal  of  it. 
We  came  many  times  to  the  Delicias  in  hope  of  it,  with 
decreasing  disappointment,  indeed,  but  to  the  last  with 
out  entire  fruition.  For  our  first  visit  we  could  not 
have  had  a  fitter  evening,  with  its  pale  sky  reddening 
from  a  streak  of  sunset  beyond  Triana,  and  we  arrived 
in  appropriate  circumstance,  round  the  immense  circle 
of  the  bull-ring  and  past  the  palace  which  the  Due 
de  Montpensier  has  given  the  church  for  a  theological 
seminary,  with  long  stretches  of  beautiful  gardens. 
Then  we  were  in  the  famous  Paseo,  a  drive  with  foot 
ways  on  each  side,  and  on  one  side  dusky  groves  widen 
ing  to  the  river.  The  paths  were  lit  with  gleaming 
statues,  and  among  the  palms  and  the  eucalyptuses 
were  orange  trees  full  of  their  golden  globes,  which 
we  wondered  were  not  stolen  till  we  were  told  they  were 
of  that  bitter  sort  which  are  mostly  sent  to  Scotland, 
not  because  they  are  in  accord  with  the  acrid  nature  of 
man  there,  but  that  they  may  be  wrought  into  marma 
lade.  On  the  other  hand  stretched  less  formal  woods, 

222 


FIRST    DAYS    IN    SEVILLE 

with  fields  for  such  polite  athletics  as  tennis,  which 
the  example  of  the  beloved  young  English  Queen  of 
Spain  is  bringing  into  reluctant  favor  with  women  im- 
memorially  accustomed  to  immobility.  The  road  was 
badly  kept,  like  most  things  in  Spain,  where  when  a 
thing  is  done  it  is  expected  to  stay  done.  Every  after 
noon  it  is  a  cloud  of  dust  and  every  evening  a  welter 
of  mud,  for  the  Iberian  idea  of  watering  a  street  is  to 
soak  it  into  a  slough.  But  nothing  can  spoil  the  Paseo, 
and  that  evening  we  had  it  mostly  to  ourselves,  though 
there  were  two  or  three  carriages  with  ladies  in 
hats,  and  at  one  place  other  ladies  dismounted  and 
courageously  walking,  while  their  carriages  followed. 
A  magnate  of  some  sort  was  shut  alone  in  a  brougham, 
in  the  care  of  footman  and  coachman  with  deeply 
silver-banded  hats;  there  were  a  few  military  and 
civil  riders,  and  there  was  distinctly  a  young  man  in 
a  dog-cart  with  a  groom,  keeping  abreast  the  landau 
of  three  ladies  in  mantillas,  with  whom  he  was  improv 
ing  what  seemed  a  chance  acquaintance.  Along  the 
course  the  public  park  gave  way  at  times  to  the  grounds 
of  private  villas ;  before  one  of  these  a  boy  did  what 
he  could  for  us  by  playing  ball  with  a  priest.  At  other 
points  there  were  booths  with  chairs  and  tables,  where 
I  am  sure  interesting  parties  of  people  would  have  been 
sitting  if  they  could  have  expected  us  to  pass. 


VIII 

The  reader,  pampered  by  the  brilliant  excitements  of 
our  American  promenades,  may  think  this  spectacle  of 
the  gay  world  of  Seville  dull;  but  he  ought  to  have 
been  with  us  a  colder,  redder,  and  sadder  evening  when 
we  had  the  Delicias  still  more  to  ourselves.  After- 

223 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

ward  the  Delicias  seemed  to  cheer  up,  and  the  place 
was  fairly  frequented  on  a  holiday,  which  we  had  not 
suspected  was  one  till  our  cabman  convinced  us  from 
his  tariff  that  we  must  pay  him  double,  because  you 
must  always  do  that  in  Seville  on  holidays.  By  this 
time  we  knew  that  most  of  the  Sevillian  rank  and 
riches  had  gone  to  Madrid  for  the  winter,  and  we 
were  the  more  surprised  by  some  evident  show  of 
them  in  the  private  turnouts  where  by  far  most  of 
the  turnouts  were  public.  But  in  Spain  a  carriage 
is  a  carriage,  and  the  Sevillian  cabs  are  really  very 
proper  and  sometimes  even  handsome,  and  we  felt  that 
our  own  did  no  discredit  to  the  Delicias.  Many  of  the 
holiday-makers  were  walking,  and  there  were  actually 
women  on  foot  in  hats  and  hobble-skirts  without  being 
openly  mocked.  On  the  evening  of  our  last  resort  to 
the  Delicias  it  was  quite  thronged  far  into  the  twilight, 
after  a  lemon  sunset  that  continued  to  tinge  the  east 
with  pink  and  violet.  There  were  hundreds  of  car 
riages,  fully  half  of  them  private,  with  coachmen  and 
footmen  in  livery.  With  them  it  seemed  to  be  the  rule 
to  stop  in  the  circle  at  a  turning-point  a  mile  off  and 
watch  the  going  and  coming.  It  was  a  serious  spectacle, 
but  not  solemn,  and  it  had  its  reliefs,  its  high-lights. 
It  was  always  pleasant  to  see  three  Spanish  ladies  on 
a  carriage  seat,  the  middle  one  protruding  because  of 
their  common  bulk,  and  oftener  in  umbrella-wide  hats 
with  towering  plumes  than  in  the  charming  mantilla. 
There  were  no  top-hats  or  other  formality  in  the  men's 
dress ;  some  of  them  were  on  horseback,  and  there  were 
two  women  riding. 

Suddenly,  as  if  it  had  come  up  out  of  the  ground,  I 
perceived  a  tram-car  keeping  abreast  of  the  riding  and 
walking  and  driving,  and  through  all  I  was  agreeably 
aware  of  files  of  peasants  bestriding  their  homing  don- 

224 


FIEST    DAYS    IN    SEVILLE 

keys  on  the  bridle-path  next  the  tram.  I  confess  that 
they  interested  me  more  than  my  social  equals  and 
superiors ;  I  should  have  liked  to  talk  with  those  fathers 
and  mothers  of  toil,  bestriding  or  perched  on  the  crup 
pers  of  their  donkeys,  and  I  should  have  liked  especially 
to  know  what  passed  in  the  mind  of  one  dear  little  girl 
who  sat  before  her  father  with  her  bare  brown  legs 
tucked  into  the  pockets  of  the  pannier. 


X 

SEVILLIAN   ASPECTS    AND    INCIDENTS 

IT  is  always  a  question  how  much  or  little  we  had 
better  know  about  the  history  of  a  strange  country  when 
seeing  it.  If  the  great  mass  of  travelers  voted  accord 
ing  to  their  ignorance,  the  majority  in  favor  of  knowing 
next  to  nothing  would  be  overwhelming,  and  I  do  not 
say  they  would  be  altogether  unwise.  History  itself  is 
often  of  two  minds  about  the  facts,  or  the  truth  from 
them,  and  when  you  have  stored  away  its  diverse  con 
clusions,  and  you  begin  to  apply  them  to  the  actual 
conditions,  you  are  constantly  embarrassed  by  the  mis 
fits.  What  did  it  avail  me  to  believe  that  when  the 
Goths  overran  the  north  of  Spain  the  Vandals  overran 
the  south,  and  when  they  swept  on  into  Africa  and 
melted  away  in  the  hot  sun  there  as  a  distinctive  race, 
they  left  nothing  but  the  name  Vandalusia,  a  letter 
less,  behind  them  ?  If  the  Vandals  were  what  they 
are  reported  to  have  been,  the  name  does  not  at  all 
characterize  the  liveliest  province  of  Spain.  Besides, 
the  very  next  history  told  me  that  they  took  even  their 
name  with  them,  and  forbade  me  the  simple  and  apt 
etymology  which  I  had  pinned  my  indolent  faith  to. 


Before  I  left  Seville  I  convinced  a  principal  book 
seller,  much  against  his  opinions,  that  there  must  be 

226 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS    AND    INCIDENTS 

some  such  brief  local  history  of  the  city  as  I  was  fond 
of  finding  in  Italian  towns,  and  I  took  it  from  his  own 
reluctant  shelf.  It  was  a  very  intelligent  little  guide, 
this  Seville  in  the  Hand,  as  it  calls  itself,  but  I  got  it 
too  late  for  use  in  exploring  the  city,  and  now  I  can 
turn  to  it  only  for  those  directions  which  will  keep  the 
reader  from  losing  his  way  in  the  devious  past.  The 
author  rejects  the  fable  which  the  chroniclers  delight 
in,  and  holds  with  historians  who  accept  the  Phoenicians 
as  the  sufficiently  remote  founders  of  Seville.  This 
does  not  put  out  of  commission  those  Biblical  "  ships 
of  Tarshish  "  which  Dr.  Edward  Everett  Hale,  in  his 
graphic  sketch  of  Spanish  history,  has  sailing  to  and 
from  the  neighboring  coasts.  Very  likely  they  came 
up  the  Guadalquivir,  and  lay  in  the  stream  where  a 
few  thousand  years  later  I  saw  those  cheerful  tramp- 
steamers  lying.  At  any  rate,  the  Phoenicians  greatly 
flourished  there,  and  gave  their  colony  the  name  of 
Hispalis,  which  it  remained  content  with  till  the  Eo- 
mans  came  and  called  the  town  Julia  Eomula,  and 
Julius  Caesar  fenced  it  with  the  strong  walls  which  the 
Moorish  conquerors,  after  the  Goths,  reinforced  and 
have  left  plain  to  be  seen  at  this  day.  The  most  casual 
of  wayfaring  men  must  have  read  as  he  ran  that  the 
Moorish  power  fell  before  the  sword  of  San  Eernando 
as  the  Gothic  fell  before  their  own,  and  the  Eoman 
before  the  Gothic.  Eut  it  is  more  difficult  to  realize 
that  earlier  than  the  Gothic,  somewhere  in  between  the 
Vandals  and  the  Eomans,  had  been  the  Carthaginians, 
whose  great  general  Hamilcar  fancied  turning  all  Spain 
into  a  Carthaginian  province.  They  were  a  branch  of 
the  Phoenicians  as  even  the  older,  unadvertised  edition 
of  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  will  tell,  and  the 
Phoenicians  were  a  sort  of  Hebrews.  Whether  they 
remained  to  flourish  with  the  other  Jews  under  the 

227 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

Moors,  my  Sevilla  en  la  Mano  does  not  say;  and  I  am 
not  sure  whether  they  survived  to  share  the  universal 
exile  into  which  Islam  and  Israel  were  finally  driven. 
What  is  certain  is,  that  the  old  Phoenician  name  of 
Hispalis  outlived  the  Roman  name  of  Julia  Romula 
and  reappeared  in  the  Arabic  as  Ishbiliya  (I  know  it 
from  my  Baedeker)  and  is  now  permanently  established 
as  Seville. 

Under  the  Moors  the  city  was  subordinate  to  Cor 
dova,  though  I  can  hardly  bear  to  think  so  in  my  far 
greater  love  of  Seville.  But  it  was  the  seat  of  schools 
of  science,  art,  and  agriculture,  and  after  the  Chris 
tians  had  got  it  back,  Alfonso  the  Learned  founded 
other  schools  there  for  the  study  of  Latin  and  Arabic. 
But  her  greatest  prosperity  and  glory  came  to  Seville 
with  the  discovery  of  America.  Not  Columbus  only, 
but  all  his  most  famous  contemporaries,  sailed  from 
the  ports  of  her  coasts ;  she  was  the  capital  of  the  com 
merce  with  the  new  world,  ruling  and  regulating  it  by 
the  oldest  mercantile  tribunal  in  the  world,  and  becom 
ing  the  richest  city  of  Spain.  Then  riches  flowered  in 
the  letters  and  arts,  especially  the  arts,  and  Herrera, 
Pacheco,  Velasquez,  Murillo,  and  Zurburan  were  born 
and  flourished  in  Seville.  In  modern  times  she  has 
taken  a  prominent  part  in  political  events.  She  led 
in  the  patriotic  war  to  drive  out  the  armies  of  Napoleon, 
and  she  seems  to  have  been  on  both  sides  in  the  struggle 
for  liberal  and  absolutist  principles,  the  establishment 
of  the  brief  republic  of  1868,  and  the  restoration  of  the 
present  monarchy. 

Through  all  the  many  changes  from  better  to  w'orse, 
from  richer  to  poorer,  Seville  continued  faithful  to  the 
ideal  of  religious  unity  which  the  wise  Isabel  and  the 
shrewd  Ferdinand  divined  was  the  only  means  of  con 
solidating  the  intensely  provincial  kingdoms  of  Spain 

228 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS    AND    INCIDENTS 

into  one  nation  of  Spaniards.  Andalusia  not  being 
Gothic  had  never  been  Aryan,  and  it  was  one  of  her 
kings  who  carried  his  orthodoxy  to  Castile  and  estab 
lished  it  inexpugnably  at  Toledo  after  he  succeeded 
his  heretical  father  there.  When  four  or  five  hundred 
years  later  it  became  a  political  necessity  of  the  Catholic 
Kings  to  expel  their  Jewish  and  Moorish  subjects  and 
convert  their  wealth  to  pious  and  patriotic  uses,  Anda 
lusia  was  one  of  the  most  zealous  provinces  in  the  cause. 
When  presently  the  inquisitions  of  the  Holy  Office  be 
gan,  some  five  hundred  heretics  were  burned  alive  at 
Seville  before  the  year  was  out ;  many  others,  who  were 
dead  and  buried,  paid  the  penalty  of  their  heresy  in 
effigy;  in  all  more  than  two  thousand  suffered  in  the 
region  round  about.  Before  he  was  in  Valladolid,  Tor- 
quemada  was  in  Seville,  and  there  he  drew  up  the  rules 
that  governed  the  procedure  of  the  Inquisition  through 
out  Spain.  A  magnificent  quemadero,  or  crematory, 
second  only  to  that  of  Madrid,  was  built:  a  square 
stone  platform  where  almost  every  day  the  smoke  of 
human  sacrifice  ascended.  This  crematory  for  the  liv 
ing  was  in  the  meadow  of  San  Sebastian,  now  a  part 
of  the  city  park  system  which  we  left  on  the  right  that 
first  evening  when  we  drove  to  the  Delicias.  I  do  not 
know  why  I  should  now  regret  not  having  visited  the 
place  of  this  dreadful  altar  and  offered  my  unavailing 
pity  there  to  the  memory  of  those  scores  of  thousands 
of  hapless  martyrs  who  suffered  there  to  no  end,  not 
even  to  the  end  of  confirming  Spain  in  the  faith  one  and 
indivisible,  for  there  are  now,  after  so  many  generations 
of  torment,  two  Protestant  churches  in  Seville.  For 
one  thing  I  did  not  know  where  the  place  of  the  quema- 
dero  was ;  and  I  do  not  yet  know  where  those  Protestant 
churches  are. 

229 


FAMILIAE    SPANISH    TRAVELS 


ii 


If  I  went  again  to  Seville  I  should  try  to  visit  them — 
but,  as  it  was,  we  gave  our  second  day  to  the  Alcazar, 
which  is  merely  the  first  in  the  series  of  palaces  and 
gardens  once  stretching  from  the  flank  of  the  cathedral 
to  the  Tower  of  Gold  beside  the  Guadalquivir.  A  rich 
sufficiency  is  left  in  the  actual  Alcazar  to  suggest  the 
splendor  of  the  series,  and  more  than  enough  in  the 
gardens  to  invite  our  fatigue,  day  after  day,  to  the 
sun  and  shade  of  its  quiet  paths  and  seats  when  we  came 
spent  with  the  glories  and  the  bustling  piety  of  the 
cathedral.  In  our  first  visit  we  had  the  guidance  of  a 
patriotic  young  Granadan  whose  zeal  for  the  Alhambra 
would  not  admit  the  Alcazar  to  any  comparison,  but  I 
myself  still  prefer  it  after  seeing  the  Alhambra.  It  is 
as  purely  Moorish  as  that  and  it  is  in  better  repair  if 
not  better  taste.  The  taste  in  fact  is  the  same,  and  the 
Castilian  kings  consulted  it  as  eagerly  as  their  Arabic 
predecessors  in  the  talent  of  the  Moslem  architects 
whom  they  had  not  yet  begun  to  drive  into  exile.  I 
am  not  going  to  set  up  rival  to  the  colored  picture 
postals,  which  give  a  better  notion  than  I  could  give 
of  the  painted  and  gilded  stucco  decoration,  the  in 
genious  geometrical  designs  on  the  walls,  and  the  cloy 
ing  sweetness  of  the  honeycombing  in  the  vaulted  roofs. 
Every  one  will  have  his  feeling  about  Moorish  archi 
tecture  ;  mine  is  that  a  little  goes  a  great  way,  and  that 
it  is  too  monotonous  to  compete  with  the  Gothic  in 
variety,  while  it  lacks  the  dignity  of  any  form  of  the 
Greek  or  the  Renaissance.  If  the  phrase  did  not  insult 
the  sex  which  the  faith  of  the  Moslem  insufferably 
insults,  one  might  sum  up  one's  slight  for  it  in  the 
word  effeminate. 

230 


GARDENS    OF    THE    ALCAZAR 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS     AND     INCIDENTS 

The  Alcazar  gardens  are  the  best  of  the  Alcazar. 
But  I  would  not  ignore  the  homelike  charm  of  the  vast 
court  by  which  you  enter  from  the  street  outside  to  the 
palace  beyond.  It  is  planted  casually  about  with  rather 
shabby  orange  trees  that  children  were  playing  under, 
and  was  decorated  with  the  week's  wash  of  the  low, 
simple  dwellings  which  may  be  hired  at  a  rental  mod 
erate  even  for  Seville,  where  a  handsome  and  com 
modious  house  in  a  good  quarter  rents  for  sixty  dollars 
a  year.  One  of  those  two-story  cottages,  as  we  should 
call  them,  in  the  ante-court  of  the  Alcazar  had  for  the 
student  of  Spanish  life  the  special  advantage  of  a  lover 
close  to  a  ground-floor  window  dropping  tender  noth 
ings  down  through  the  slats  of  the  shutter  to  some 
maiden  lurking  within.  The  nothings  were  so  tender 
that  you  could  not  hear  them  drop,  and,  besides,  they 
were  Spanish  nothings,  and  it  would  not  have  served 
any  purpose  for  the  stranger  to  listen  for  them.  Once 
afterward  we  saw  the  national  courtship  going  on  at 
another  casement,  but  that  was  at  night,  and  here  the 
precious  first  sight  of  it  was  offered  at  ten  o'clock  in 
the  morning.  Nobody  seemed  to  mind  the  lover  sta 
tioned  outside  the  shutter  with  which  the  iron  bars 
forbade  him  the  closest  contact;  and  it  is  only  fair  to 
say  that  he  minded  nobody ;  he  was  there  when  we  went 
in  and  there  when  we  came  out,  and  it  appears  that 
when  it  is  a  question  of  love-making  time  is  no  more  an 
object  in  Spain  than  in  the  United  States.  The  scene 
wonld  have  been  better  by  moonlight,  but  you  cannot 
always  have  it  moonlight,  and  the  sun  did  very  well; 
at  least,  the  lover  did  not  seem  to  miss  the  moon. 

He  was  only  an  incident,  and  I  hope  the  most  ro 
mantic  reader  will  let  me  revert  from  him  to  the  Alcazar 
gardens.  We  were  always  reverting  to  them  on  any 

pretext  or  occasion,  and  we  mostly  had  them  to  ourselves 

231 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

in  the  gentle  afternoons  when  we  strayed  or  sat  about 
at  will  in  them.  The  first  day  we  were  somewhat  mo 
lested  by  the  instruction  of  our  patriotic  Granadan 
guide,  wiho  had  a  whopper-jaw  and  grayish  blue  eyes, 
but  coal-black  hair  for  all  his  other  blondness.  He 
smoked  incessant  cigarettes,  and  he  showed  us  especially 
the  pavilion  of  Charles  the  Fifth,  whom,  after  that 
use  of  all  English-speaking  Spanish  guides,  he  called 
Charley  Fift.  It  appeared  that  the  great  emperor  used 
this  pavilion  for  purposes  of  meditation;  but  he  could 
not  always  have  meditated  there,  though  the  frame  of 
a  brazier  standing  in  the  center  intimated  that  it  was 
tempered  for  reflection.  The  first  day  we  found  a  small 
bird  in  possession,  flying  from  one  bit  of  the  carved 
wooden  ceiling  to  another,  and  then,  taking  our  presence 
in  dudgeon,  out  into  the  sun.  Another  day  there  was 
a  nursery-girl  there  with  a  baby  that  cried ;  on  another, 
still  more  distractingly,  a  fashionable  young  French 
bride  who  went  kodaking  round  while  her  husband 
talked  with  an  archaeological  official,  evidently  Spanish. 
In  his  own  time,  Charley  probably  had  the  place  more 
to  himself,  though  even  then  his  thoughts  could  not 
have  been  altogether  cheerful,  whether  he  recalled  what 
he  had  vainly  done  to  keep  out  of  Spain  and  yet  to 
take  the  worst  of  Spain  with  him  into  the  Netherlands, 
where  he  tried  to  plant  the  Inquisition  among  his  Flem 
ings  ;  he  was  already  much  soured  with  a  world  that 
had  cloyed  him,  and  was  perhaps  considering  even  then 
how  he  might  make  his  escape  from  it  to  the  cloister. 


in 

We  did  not  know  as  yet  how  almost  entirely  dramatic 
the  palace  of  the  Alcazar  was,  how  largely  it  was  repre 
sentative  of  what  the  Spanish  successors  of  the  Moorish 

232 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS     AND     INCIDENTS 

kings  thought  those  kings  would  have  made  it  if  they 
had  made  it;  and  it  was  probably  through  an  instinct 
for  the  genuine  that  we  preferred  the  gardens  after 
our  first  cries  of  wonder.  What  remains  to  me  of  our 
many  visits  is  the  mass  of  high  borders  of  box,  with 
roses,  jasmine,  and  orange  trees,  palms,  and  cypresses. 
The  fountains  dribbled  rather  than  gushed,  and  every 
where  were  ranks  and  rows  of  plants  in  large,  high 
earthen  pots  beside  or  upon  the  tiled  benching  that 
faced  the  fountains  and  would  have  been  easier  to  sit 
on  if  you  had  not  had  to  supply  the  back  yourself.  The 
flowers  were  not  in  great  profusion,  and  chiefly  we 
rejoiced  in  the  familiar  quaintness  of  clumps  of  massive 
blood-red  coxcombs  and  strange  yellow  ones.  The  walks 
were  bordered  with  box,  and  there  remains  distinctly 
the  impression  of  marble  steps  and  mosaic  seats  inlaid 
with  tiles;  all  Seville  seems  inlaid  with  tiles.  One 
afternoon  we  lingered  longer  than  usual  because  the  day 
was  so  sunnily  warm  in  the  garden  paths  and  spaces, 
without  being  hot.  A  gardener  whom  we  saw  oftenest 
hung  about  his  flowers  in  a  sort  of  vegetable  calm,  and 
not  very  different  from  theirs  except  that  they  were 
not  smoking  cigarettes.  lie  did  not  move  a  muscle 
or  falter  in  his  apparently  unseeing  gaze;  but  when 
one  of  us  picked  a  seed  from  the  ground  and  wondered 
what  it  was  he  said  it  was  a  magnolia  seed,  and  as  if 
he  could  bear  no  more  went  away.  In  one  wilding  place 
which  seemed  set  apart  for  a  nursery  several  men  were 
idly  working  with  many  pauses,  but  not  so  many  as 
to  make  the  spectator  nervous.  As  the  afternoon  waned 
and  the  sun  sank,  its  level  rays  dwelt  on  the  galleries 
of  the  palace  which  Peter  the  Cruel  built  himself  and 
made  so  ugly  with  harsh  brown  stucco  ornament  that 
it  set  your  teeth  on  edge,  and  with  gigantic  frescos 

exaggerated  from  the  Italian,  and  very  coarse  and  rank. 

233 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

It  was  this  savage  prince  who  invented  much  of  the 
Alcazar  in  the  soft  Moorish  taste ;  but  in  those  hideous 
galleries  he  let  his  terrible  nature  loose,  though  as  for 
that  some  say  he  was  no  crueler  than  certain  other  Span 
ish  kings  of  that  period.  This  is  the  notion  of  my 
unadvertised  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  and  perhaps 
we  ought  to  think  of  him  leniently  as  Peter  the  Fero 
cious.  He  was  kind  to  some  people  and  was  popularly 
known  as  the  Justiciary ;  he  especially  liked  the  Moors 
and  Jews,  who  were  gratefully  glad,  poor  things,  of 
being  liked  by  any  one  under  the  new  Christian  rule. 
But  he  certainly  killed  several  of  his  half-brothers,  and 
notably  he  killed  his  half-brother  Don  Fadrique  in  the 
Alcazar.  That  is,  if  he  had  no  hand  in  the  butchery 
himself  he  had  him  killed  after  luring  him  to  Seville 
for  the  tournaments  and  forgiving  him  for  all  their 
mutual  injuries  with  every  caressing  circumstance. 
One  reads  that  after  the  king  has  kissed  him  he  sits 
down  again  to  his  game  of  backgammon  and  Don 
Fadrique  goes  into  the  next  room  to  Maria  de  Padilla, 
the  lovely  and  gentle  lady  whom  Don  Pedro  has  mar 
ried  as  much  as  he  can  with  a  wedded  wife  shut  up 
in  Toledo.  She  sits  there  in  terror  with  her  damsels 
and  tries  with  looks  and  signs  to  make  Don  Fadrique 
aware  of  his  danger.  But  he  imagines  no  harm  till  the 
king  and  his  companions,  with  their  daggers  drawn, 
come  to  the  curtains,  which  the  king  parts,  command 
ing,  "  Seize  the  Master  of  Santiago !"  Don  Fadrique 
tries  to  draw  his  sword,  and  then  he  turns  and  flies 
through  the  halls  of  the  Alcazar,  where  he  finds 
every  door  bolted  and  barred.  The  king's  men  are 
at  his  heels,  and  at  last  one  of  them  fells  him  with 
a  blow  of  his  mace.  The  king  goes  back  with  a 
face  of  sympathy  to  Maria,  who  has  fallen  to  the 
floor. 

234 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS     AND     INCIDENTS 

The  treacherous  keeping  is  all  rather  in  the  taste 
of  the  Italian  Renaissance,  but  the  murder  itself  is 
more  Roman,  as  the  Spanish  atrocities  and  amusements 
are  apt  to  be.  Murray  says  it  was  in  the  beautiful  Hall 
of  the  Ambassadors  that  Don  Fadrique  was  killed,  but 
the  other  manuals  are  not  so  specific.  Wherever  it 
was,  there  is  a  blood-stain  in  the  pavement  which  our 
Granadan  guide  failed  to  show  us,  possibly  from  a 
patriotic  pique  that  there  are  no  blood-stains  in  the 
Alhambra  with  personal  associations.  I  cannot  say 
that  much  is  to  be  made  of  the  vaulted  tunnel  where 
poor  Maria  de  Padilla  used  to  bathe,  probably  not  much 
comforted  by  the  courtiers  afterward  drinking  the  water 
from  the  tank;  she  must  have  thought  the  compliment 
rather  nasty,  and  no  doubt  it  was  paid  her  to  please 
Don  Pedro. 

We  found  it  pleasanter  going  and  coming  through 
the  corridor  leading  to  the  gardens  from  the  public 
court.  This  was  kept  at  the  outer  end  by  an  "  old 
rancid  Christian  "  smoking  incessant  cigarettes  and  not 
explicitly  refusing  to  sell  us  picture  postals  after  tak 
ing  our  entrance  fee ;  the  other  end  was  held  by  a  young, 
blond,  sickly-looking  girl,  who  made  us  take  small  nose 
gays  at  our  own  price  and  whom  it  became  a  game  to 
see  if  we  could  escape.  I  have  left  saying  to  the  last 
that  the  king  and  queen  of  Spain  have  a  residence  in 
the  Alcazar,  and  that  when  they  come  in  the  early 
spring  they  do  not  mind  coining  to  it  through  that 
plebeian  quadrangle.  I  should  not  mind  it  myself  if 
I  could  go  back  there  next  spring. 


IV 

We  had  refused  with  loathing  the  offer  of  those  gipsy 
jades  to  dance  for  us  in  their  noisome  purlieu  at  Triana, 
16  235 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

but  we  were  not  proof  against  the  chance  of  seeing  some 
gipsy  dancing  in  a  cafe-theater  one  night  in  Seville. 
The  decent  place  was  filled  with  the  "  plain  people/' 
who  sat  with  their  hats  on  at  rude  tables  smoking  and 
drinking  coffee  from  tall  glasses.  They  were  apparent 
ly  nearly  all  working-men  who  had  left  nearly  all  their 
wives  to  keep  on  working  at  home,  though  a  few  of 
these  also  had  come.  On  a  small  stage  four  gipsy  girls, 
in  unfashionably  and  untheatrically  decent  gowns  of 
white,  blue,  or  red,  with  flowers  in  their  hair,  sat  in 
a  semicircle  with  one  subtle,  silent,  darkling  man  among 
them.  One  after  another  they  got  up  and  did  the  same 
twisting  and  posturing,  without  dancing,  and  while 
one  posed  and  contorted  the  rest  unenviously  joined 
the  spectators  in  their  clapping  and  their  hoarse  cries 
of  "  Ole !"  It  was  all  perfectly  proper  except  for  one 
high  moment  of  indecency  thrown  in  at  the  end  of 
each  turn,  as  if  to  give  the  house  its  money's  worth. 
But  the  real,  overflowing  compensation  came  when  that 
little,  lithe,  hipless  man  in  black  jumped  to  his  feet 
and  stormed  the  audience  with  a  dance  of  hands  and 
arms,  feet  and  legs,  head,  neck,  and  the  whole  body, 
which  Mordkin  in  his  finest  frenzy  could  not  have 
equaled  or  approached.  Whatever  was  fiercest  and  wild 
est  in  nature  and  boldest  in  art  was  there,  and  now  the 
house  went  mad  with  its  hand-clappings  and  table- 
hammerings  and  deep-throated  "  Oles !" 

Another  night  we  went  to  the  academy  of  the  world- 
renowned  Otero  and  saw  the  instruction  of  Sevillian 
youth  in  native  dances  of  the  haute  ecole.  The  academy 
used  to  be  free  to  a  select  public,  but  now  the  chosen, 
who  are  nearly  always  people  from  the  hotels,  must 
pay  ten  pesetas  each  for  their  pleasure,  and  it  is  not 
too  much  for  a  pleasure  so  innocent  and  charming.  The 
academy  is  on  the  ground  floor  of  the  maestro' s  unpre- 

236 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS     AND     INCIDENTS 

tentious  house,  and  in  a  waiting-room  beyond  the  shoe 
maker's  shop  which  filled  the  vestibule  sat,  patient  in 
their  black  mantillas,  the  mothers  and  nurses  of  the 
pupils.  These  were  mostly  quite  small  children  in  their 
every-day  clothes,  but  there  were  two  or  three  older 
girls  in  the  conventional  dancing  costume  which  a  lady 
from  one  of  the  hotels  had  emulated.  Everything  was 
very  simple  and  friendly ;  Otero  found  good  seats  among 
the  aficionados  for  the  guests  presented  to  him,  and  then 
began  calling  his  pupils  to  the  floor  of  the  long,  narrow 
room  with  quick  commands  of  "  Venga !"  A  piano  was 
tucked  away  in  a  corner,  but  the  dancers  kept  time  now 
with  castanets  and  now  by  snapping  their  fingers.  Two 
of  the  oldest  girls,  who  were  apparently  graduates,  were 
"  differently  beautiful  "  in  their  darkness  and  fairness, 
but  alike  picturesquely  Spanish  in  their  vivid  dresses 
and  the  black  veils  fluttering  from  their  high  combs. 
A  youth  in  green  velvet  jacket  and  orange  trousers, 
whose  wonderful  dancing  did  him  credit  as  Otero's  prize 
pupil,  took  part  with  them;  he  had  the  square-jawed, 
high-cheek-boned  face  of  the  lower-class  Spaniard,  and 
they  the  oval  of  all  Spanish  women.  Here  there  was 
no  mere  posturing  and  contortioning  among  the  girls 
as  with  the  gipsies ;  they  sprang  like  flames  and  stamped 
the  floor  with  joyous  detonations  of  their  slippers.  It 
was  their  convention  to  catch  the  hat  from  the  head  of 
some  young  spectator  and  wear  it  in  a  figure  and  then 
toss  it  back  to  him.  One  of  them  enacted  the  part 
of  a  torero  at  a  bull-fight,  stamping  round  first  in  a 
green  satin  cloak  which  she  then  waved  before  a  man's 
felt  hat  thrown  on  the  ground  to  represent  the  bull 
hemmed  about  with  banderillas  stuck  quivering  into 
the  floor.  But  the  prettiest  thing  was  the  dancing  of 
two  little  girl  pupils,  one  fair  and  thin  and  of  an 

angelic  gracefulness,  and  the  other  plump  and  dark, 

237 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

who  was  as  dramatic  as  the  blond  was  lyrical.  They 
accompanied  themselves  with  castanets,  and,  though  the 
little  fatling  toed  in  and  wore  a  common  dress  of  blue- 
striped  gingham,  I  am  afraid  she  won  our  hearts  from 
her  graceful  rival.  Both  were  very  serious  and  gave 
their  whole  souls  to  the  dance,  but  they  were  not  more 
childishly  earnest  than  an  older  girl  in  black  who  danced 
with  one  of  the  gaudy  graduates,  panting  in  her  anxious 
zeal  and  stopping  at  last  with  her  image  of  the  Virgin 
she  resembled  flung  wildly  down  her  back  from  the 
place  where  it  had  hung  over  her  heart. 


We  preferred  walking  home  from  Senor  Otero's  house 
through  the  bright,  quiescing  street,  because  in  driving 
there  we  had  met  with  an  adventure  which  we  did  not 
care  to  repeat.  We  were  driving  most  unaggressively 
across  a  small  plaza,  with  a  driver  and  a  friend  on  the 
box  beside  him  to  help  keep  us  from  harm,  when  a 
trolley-car  came  wildly  round  a  corner  at  the  speed  of 
at  least  two  miles  an  hour  and  crossed  our  track.  Our 
own  speed  was  such  that  we  could  not  help  striking 
the  trolley  in  a  collision  which  was  the  fault  of  no  one 
apparently.  The  front  of  the  car  was  severely  banged, 
one  mud-guard  of  our  victoria  was  bent,  and  our  con 
versation  was  interrupted.  Immediately  a  crowd  as 
sembled  from  the  earth  or  the  air,  but  after  a  single 
exchange  of  reproaches  between  the  two  drivers  nothing 
was  said  by  any  one.  No  policeman  arrived  to  constater 
the  facts,  and  after  the  crowd  had  silently  satisfied  or 
dissatisfied  itself  that  no  one  was  hurt  it  silently  dis 
persed.  The  car  ambled  grumbling  off  and  we  drove 

on  with  some  vague  murmurs  from  our  driver,  whose 

238 


SEYILLIAN    ASPECTS    AND    INCIDENTS 

nerves  seemed  shaken,  but  who  was  supported  in  a  some 
what  lurching  and  devious  progress  by  the  caressing 
arm  of  the  friend  on  the  seat  beside  him. 

All  this  was  in  Seville,  where  the  popular  emotions 
are  painted  in  travel  and  romance  as  volcanic  as  at 
Naples,  where  no  one  would  have  slept  the  night  of 
our  accident  and  the  spectators  would  be  debating  it 
still.  In  our  own  surprise  and  alarm  we  partook  of 
the  taciturnity  of  the  witnesses,  which  I  think  was 
rather  fine  and  was  much  decenter  than  any  sort  of 
utterance.  On  our  way  home  we  had  occasion  to  prac 
tise  a  like  forbearance  toward  the  lover  whom  we"  passed 
as  he  stood  courting  through  the  casement  of  a  ground 
floor.  The  soft  air  was  full  of  the  sweet  of  jasmine 
and  orange  blossoms  from  the  open  patios.  Many  peo 
ple  besides  ourselves  were  passing,  but  in  a  well-bred 
avoidance  of  the  dark  figure  pressed  to  the  grating  and 
scarcely  more  recognizable  than  the  invisible  figure 
within.  I  confess  I  thought  it  charming,  and  if  at 
some  period  of  their  lives  people  must  make  love  I 
do  not  believe  there  is  a  more  inoffensive  way  of  do 
ing  it. 

By  the  sort  of  echo  notable  in  life's  experience  we 
had  a  reverberation  of  the  orange-flower  perfume  of 
that  night  in  the  orange-flower  honey  at  breakfast  next 
morning.  We  lived  to  learn  that  our  own  bees  gather 
the  same  honey  from  the  orange  flowers  of  Florida ;  but 
at  the  time  we  believed  that  only  the  bees  of  Seville 
did  it,  and  I  still  doubt  whether  anywhere  in  America 
the  morning  wakes  to  anything  like  the  long,  rich,  sad 
calls  of  the  Sevillian  street  hucksters.  It  is  true  that 
you  do  not  get  this  plaintive  music  without  the  ac 
companying  note  of  the  hucksters'  donkeys,  which,  if 
they  were  better  advised,  would  not  close  with  the  sort 

of  inefficient  sifflication  which  they  now  use  in  spoiling 

239 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

an  otherwise  most  noble,  most  leonine  roar.  But  when 
were  donkeys  of  any  sort  ever  well  advised  in  all  re 
spects  ?  Those  of  Seville,  where  donkeys  abound,  were 
otherwise  of  the  superior  intelligence  which  through 
out  Spain  leaves  the  horse  and  even  the  mule  far  be 
hind,  and  constitutes  the  donkeys,  far  beyond  the  idle 
and  useless  dogs,  the  friends  of  man.  They  indefinitely 
outnumber  the  dogs,  and  the  cats  are  of  course  nowhere 
in  the  count.  Yet  I  would  not  misprize  the  cats  of 
Seville,  which  apparently  have  their  money  price.  We 
stopped  to  admire  a  beautiful  white  one,  on  our  way 
to  see  the  market  one  day,  praising  it  as  intelligibly 
as  we  could,  and  the  owner  caught  it  up,  when  we  had 
passed  and  ran  after  us,  and  offered  to  sell  it  to  us. 

That  might  have  been  because  it  was  near  the  market 
where  we  experienced  almost  the  only  mercantile  zeal 
we  had  known  in  Spain.  Women  with  ropes  and  gar 
lands  of  onions  round  their  necks  invited  us  to  buy, 
and  we  had  hopeful  advances  from  the  stalls  of  salads 
and  fruits,  where  there  was  a  brave  and  beautiful  show 
of  lettuces  and  endives,  grapes,  medlars,  and  heaps  of 
melons,  but  no  oranges;  I  do  not  know  why,  though 
there  were  shining  masses  of  red  peppers  and  green 
peppers,  and  vast  earthen  bowls  with  yellow  peas  soak 
ing  in  them.  The  flowers  were  every  gay  autumnal 
sort,  especially  dahlias,  sometimes  made  into  stiff  bou 
quets,  perhaps  for  church  offerings.  There  were  mounds 
of  chestnuts,  four  or  five  feet  high  and  wide ;  and  these 
flowers  and  fruits  filled  the  interior  of  the  market,  while 
the  stalls  for  the  flesh  and  fish  were  on  the  outside. 
There  seemed  more  sellers  than  buyers ;  here  and  there 
were  ladies  buying,  but  it  is  said  that  the  mistresses 
commonly  send  their  maids  for  the  daily  provision. 

Ordinarily  I  should  say  you  could  not  go  amiss  for 

your  profit  and  pleasure  in  Seville,  but  there  are  certain 

240 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS    AND    INCIDENTS 

imperative  objects  of  interest  like  the  Casa  de  Pilatos 
which  you  really  have  to  do.  Strangely  enough,  it  is 
very  well  worth  doing,  for,  though  it  is  even  more 
factitiously  Moorish  than  the  Alcazar,  it  is  of  almost 
as  great  beauty  and  of  greater  dignity.  Gardens,  gal 
leries,  staircases,  statues,  paintings,  all  are  interesting, 
with  a  mingled  air  of  care  and  neglect  which  is  peculiar 
ly  charming,  though  perhaps  the  keener  sensibilities,  the 
morbider  nerves  may  suffer  from  the  glare  and  hardness 
of  the  tiling  which  render  the  place  so  wonderful  and 
so  exquisite.  One  must  complain  of  something,  and  I 
complain  of  the  tiling;  I  do  not  mind  the  house  being 
supposed  like  the  house  of  Pontius  Pilate  in  Jerusalem. 

It  belongs  to  the  Duke  of  Medina-Celi,  who  no  more 
comes  to  it  from  Madrid  than  the  Duke  of  Alva  comes 
to  his  house,  which  I  somehow  perversely  preferred. 
For  one  thing,  the  Alva  palace  has  eleven  patios,  all 
far  more  forgotten  than  the  four  in  the  House  of  Pilate, 
and  I  could  fully  glut  my  love  of  patios  without  seeing 
half  of  them.  Besides,  it  was  in  the  charge  of  a  typical 
Spanish  family:  a  lean,  leathery,  sallow  father,  a  fat, 
immovable  mother,  and  a  tall,  silent  daughter.  The 
girl  showed  us  darkly  about  the  dreary  place,  with  its 
fountains  and  orange  trees  and  palms,  its  damp,  Mo 
resque,  moldy  walls,  its  damp,  moldy,  beautiful  wooden 
ceilings,  and  its  damp,  moldy  staircase  leading  to  the 
family  rooms  overhead,  which  we  could  not  see.  The 
family  stays  for  a  little  time  only  in  the  spring  and 
fall,  but  if  ever  they  stay  so  late  as  we  had  come  the 
sunlight  lying  so  soft  and  warm  in  the  patio  and  the 
garden  out  of  it  must  have  made  them  as  sorry  to  leave 
it  as  we  were. 

I  am  not  sure  but  I  valued  the  House  of  Alva  some 
what  for  the  chance  my  visit  to  it  gave  me  of  seeing  a 
Sevillian  tenement-house  such  as  I  had  hoped  I  might 

241 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

see.  One  hears  that  such  houses  are  very  scrupulously 
kept  by  the  janitors  who  compel  the  tenants  to  a  cleanli 
ness  not  perhaps  always  their  nature.  At  any  rate, 
this  one,  just  across  the  way  from  the  Alva  House,  was 
of  a  surprising  neatness.  It  was  built  three  stories 
high,  with  galleries  looking  into  an  open  court  and  doors 
giving  from  these  into  the  several  tenements.  As  for 
tune,  which  does  not  continually  smile  on  travel,  would 
have  it  that  morning,  two  ladies  of  the  house  were 
having  a  vivid  difference  of  opinion  on  an  upper  gallery. 
Or  at  least  one  was,  for  the  other  remained  almost  as 
silent  as  the  spectators  who  grouped  themselves  about 
her  or  put  their  heads  out  of  the  windows  to  see,  as 
well  as  hear,  what  it  was  about.  I  wish  I  knew  and  I 
would  tell  the  reader.  The  injured  party,  and  I  am 
sure  she  must  have  been  deeply  injured,  showered  her 
enemy  with  reproaches,  and  each  time  when  she  had 
emptied  the  vials  of  her  wrath  with  much  shaking  of  her 
hands  in  the  wrong-doer's  face  she  went  away  a  few 
yards  and  filled  them  up  again  and  then  returned  for  a 
fresh  discharge.  It  was  perfectly  like  a  scene  of  Gol- 
doni  and  like  many  a  passage  of  real  life  in  his  native 
city,  and  I  was  rapt  in  it  across  fifty  years  to  the  Venice 
I  used  to  know.  But  the  difference  in  Seville  was  that 
there  was  actively  only  one  combatant  in  the  strife,  and 
the  witnesses  took  no  more  part  in  it  than  the  passive 
resistant. 


VI 


As  a  contrast  to  this  violent  scene  which  was  not  so 
wholly  violent  but  that  it  was  relieved  by  a  boy  teas 
ing  a  cat  with  his  cap  in  the  foreground,  and  the  sweet 
singing  of  canaries  in  the  windows  of  the  houses  near, 
I  may  commend  the  Casa  de  los  Venerables,  ecclesi- 

242 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS    AND    INCIDENTS 

astics  somehow  related  to  the  cathedral  and  having 
their  tranquil  dwelling  not  far  from  it.  The  street 
we  took  from  the  Duke  of  Alva's  palace  was  so  nar 
row  and  crooked  that  we  scraped  the  walls  in  passing, 
and  we  should  never  have  got  by  one  heavily  laden 
donkey  if  he  had  not  politely  pushed  the  side  of  his 
pannier  into  a  doorway  to  make  room  for  us.  When  we 
did  get  to  the  Casa  de  los  Yenerables  we  found  it 
mildly  yellow-washed  and  as  beautifully  serene  and 
sweet  as  the  house  of  venerable  men  should  be.  Its 
distinction  in  a  world  of  patios  was  a  patio  where  the 
central  fountain  was  sunk  half  a  story  below  the  en 
trance  floor,  and  encircled  by  a  stairway  by  which  the 
humble  neighbor  folk  freely  descended  to  fill  their 
water  jars.  I  suppose  that  gentle  mansion  has  other 
merits,  but  the  fine  staircase  that  ended  under  a  baroque 
dome  left  us  facing  a  bolted  door,  so  that  we  had  to 
guess  at  those  attractions,  which  I  leave  the  reader  to 
imagine  in  turn. 

I  have  kept  the  unique  wonder  of  Seville  waiting  too 
long  already  for  my  recognition,  though  in  its  eight 
hundred  years  it  should  have  learned  patience  enough 
for  worse  things.  From  its  great  antiquity  alone,  if 
from  nothing  else,  it  is  plain  that  the  Giralda  at  Seville 
could  not  have  been  studied  from  the  tower  of  the  Madi 
son  Square  Garden  in  New  York,  which  the  American 
will  recall  when  he  sees  it.  If  the  case  must  be  re 
versed  and  we  must  allow  that  the  Madison  Square 
tower  was  studied  from  the  Giralda,  we  must  still  recog 
nize  that  it  is  no  servile  copy,  but  in  its  frank  imitation 
has  a  grace  and  beauty  which  achieves  originality. 
Still,  the  Giralda  is  always  the  Giralda,  and,  though 
there  had  been  no  Saint-Gaudens  to  tip  its  summit 
with  such  a  flying-footed  nymph  as  poises  on  our  own 

tower,  the  figure  of  Faith  which  crowns  it  is  at  least 

243 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

a  good  weather-vane,  and  from  its  office  of  turning  gives 
the  mighty  bell-tower  its  name.  Long  centuries  before 
the  tower  was  a  belf  ry  it  served  the  mosque,  which  the 
cathedral  now  replaces,  as  a  minaret  for  the  muezzin 
to  call  the  faithful  to  prayer,  but  it  was  then  only  two- 
thirds  as  high.  The  Christian  belfry  which  continues 
it  is  not  in  offensive  discord  with  the  structure  below; 
its  other  difference  in  form  and  spirit  achieves  an  im 
possible  harmony.  The  Giralda,  however,  chiefly  works 
its  enchantment  by  its  color,  but  here  I  must  leave  the 
proof  of  this  to  the  picture  postal  which  now  everywhere 
takes  the  bread  out  of  the  word-painter's  mouth.  The 
time  was  when  with  a  palette  full  of  tinted  adjectives 
one  might  hope  to  do  an  unrivaled  picture  of  the  Giral 
da;  but  that  time  is  gone;  and  if  the  reader  has  not 
a  colored  postal  by  him  he  should  lose  no  time  in  going 
to  Seville  and  seeing  the  original.  For  the  best  view 
of  it  I  must  advise  a  certain  beautifully  irregular  small 
court  in  the  neighborhood,  with  simple  houses  so  low 
that  you  can  easily  look  up  over  their  roofs  and  see  the 
mighty  bells  of  the  Giralda  rioting  far  aloof,  flinging 
themselves  beyond  the  openings  of  the  belfry  and  deaf- 
eningly  making  believe  to  leap  out  into  space.  If  the 
traveler  fails  to  find  this  court  (for  it  seems  now  and 
then  to  be  taken  in  and  put  away),  he  need  not  despair 
of  seeing  the  Giralda  fitly.  He  cannot  see  Seville  at 
all  without  seeing  it,  and  from  every  point,  far  or  near, 
he  sees  it  grand  and  glorious. 

I  remember  it  especially  from  beyond  the  Guadal 
quivir  in  the  drive  we  took  through  Triana  to  the  vil 
lage  of  Italica,  where  three  Roman  emperors  were  born, 
as  the  guide-books  will  officiously  hasten  to  tell,  and 
steal  away  your  chance  of  treating  your  reader  with 
any  effect  of  learned  research.  These  emperors  (I  will 

not  be  stopped  by  any  guide-book  from  saying)  were 

244 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS     AND     INCIDENTS 

Trajan,  Hadrian,  and  Theodosius;  and  Triana  is  named 
for  the  first  of  them.  Fortunately,  we  turned  to  the 
right  after  crossing  the  bridge  and  so  escaped  the  gipsy 
quarter,  but  we  paused  through  a  long  street  so  swarm 
ing  with  children  that  we  wondered  to  hear  whole 
schoolrooms  full  of  them  humming  and  droning  their 
lessons  as  we  made  our  way  among  the  tenants.  For 
tunately,  they  played  mostly  in  the  gutters,  the  larger 
looking  after  the  smaller  when  their  years  and  riches 
were  so  few  more,  with  that  beautiful  care  which  child 
hood  bestows  on  babyhood  everywhere  in  Europe.  To 
say  that  those  Spanish  children  were  as  tenderly  watch 
ful  of  these  Spanish  babies  as  English  children  is  to 
say  everything.  Now  and  then  a  mother  cared  for  a 
babe  as  only  a  mother  can  in  an  office  which  the  pictures 
and  images  of  the  Most  Holy  \7irgin  consecrate  and  en 
dear  in  lands  where  the  sterilized  bottle  is  unknown, 
but  oftenest  it  was  a  little  sister  that  held  it  in  her 
arms  and  crooned  whatever  was  the  Spanish  of — 

Eack  back,   baby,  daddy  shot   a  b'ar; 
Eack  back,  baby,  see  it  hangin'  thar. 

For  there  are  no  rocking-chairs  in  Triana,  as  there  were 
none  in  our  backwoods,  and  the  little  maids  tilted  to 
and  fro  on  the  fore  legs  and  hind  legs  of  their  chairs 
and  lulled  their  charges  to  sleep  with  seismic  joltings. 
When  the  street  turned  into  a  road  it  turned  into  a 
road  a  hundred  feet  wide;  one  of  those  roads  which 
Charles  III.,  when  he  came  to  the  Spanish  throne  from 
Naples,  full  of  beneficent  projects  and  ideals,  bestowed 
upon  his  unwilling  and  ungrateful  subjects.  These 
roads  were  made  about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  they  have  been  gathering  dust  ever  since, 
so  that  the  white  powder  now  lies  in  the  one  beyond 
Triana  five  or  six  inches  deep.  Along  the  sides  oc- 

245 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

casional  shade -trees  stifled,  and  beyond  these  gaunt, 
verdureless  fields  widened  away,  though  we  were  told 
that  in  the  spring  the  fields  were  red  with  flowers 
and  green  with  young  wheat.  There  were  no  market- 
gardens,  and  the  chief  crop  seemed  brown  pigs  and 
black  goats.  In  some  of  the  foregrounds,  as  well  as 
the  backgrounds,  were  olive  orchards  with  olives  heaped 
under  them  and  peasants  still  resting  from  their  midday 
breakfast.  A  mauve  bell-shaped  flower  plentifully 
fringed  the  wayside;  our  driver  said  it  had  no  name, 
and  later  an  old  peasant  said  it  was  "  bad." 


VII 


We  passed  a  convent  turned  into  a  prosperous-look 
ing  manufactory  and  we  met  a  troop  of  merry  priests 
talking  gayly  and  laughing  together,  and  very  effective 
in  their  black  robes  against  the  white  road.  When 
we  came  to  the  village  that  was  a  municipium  under 
Augustus  and  a  colonia  under  Hadrian,  we  found  it 
indeed  scanty  and  poor,  but  very  neat  and  self-respect 
ful-looking,  and  not  unworthy  to  have  been  founded  by 
Scipio  Africanus  two  hundred  years  before  Christ. 
Such  cottage  interiors  as  we  glimpsed  seemed  cleaner 
and  cozier  than  some  in  Wales;  men  in  wide  flat- 
brimmed  hats  sat  like  statues  at  the  doors,  absolutely 
motionless,  but  there  were  women  bustling  in  and  out 
in  their  work,  and  at  one  place  a  little  girl  of  ten  had 
been  left  to  do  the  family  wash,  and  was  doing  it  joy 
ously  and  spreading  the  clothes  in  the  dooryard  to  dry. 
We  did  not  meet  with  universal  favor  as  we  drove  by; 
some  groups  of  girls  mocked  our  driver ;  when  we  said 
one  of  them  was  pretty  he  answered  that  he  had  seen 
prettier. 

246 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS    AND     INCIDENTS 

At  the  entrance  to  the  ruins  of  the  amphitheater 
which  forms  the  tourist's  chief  excuse  for  visiting 
Italica  the  popular  manners  softened  toward  us;  the 
village  children  offered  to  sell  us  wild  narcissus  flowers 
and  were  even  willing  to  take  money  in  charity.  They 
followed  us  into  the  ruins,  much  forbidden  by  the  fine, 
toothless  old  custodian  who  took  possession  of  us  as  his 
proper  prey  and  led  us  through  the  moldering  caverns 
and  crumbling  tiers  of  seats  which  form  the  amphi 
theater.  Vast  blocks,  vast  hunks,  of  the  masonry  are 
broken  off  from  the  mass  and  lie  detached,  but  the  mass 
keeps  the  form  and  dignity  of  the  original  design ;  and 
in  the  lonely  fields  there  it  had  something  august  and 
proud  beyond  any  quality  of  the  Arena  at  Verona  or 
the  Colosseum  at  Rome.  It  is  mostly  stripped  of  the 
marble  that  once  faced  the  interior,  and  is  like  some 
monstrous  oval  shaped  out  of  the  earth,  but  near  the 
imperial  box  lay  some  white  slabs  with  initials  cut  in 
them  which  restored  the  vision  of  the  "  grandeur  that 
was  Rome  "  pretty  well  over  the  known  world  when  this 
great  work  was  in  its  prime.  Our  custodian  was  quali 
fied  by  his  toothlessness  to  lisp  like  any  old  Castilian 
the  letters  that  other  Andalusians  hiss,  but  my  own 
Spanish  was  so  slight  and  his  patois  was  so  dense  that 
the  best  we  could  do  was  to  establish  a  polite  misunder 
standing.  On  this  his  one  word  of  English,  repeated 
as  we  passed  through  the  subterranean  doors,  "  Lion, 
lion,  lion,"  cast  a  gleam  of  intelligence  which  brightened 
into  a  vivid  community  of  ideas  when  we  ended  in  his 
cottage,  and  he  prepared  to  sell  us  some  of  the  small 
Roman  coins  which  formed  his  stock  in  trade.  The 
poor  place  was  beautifully  neat,  and  from  his  window 
he  made  us  free  of  a  sight  of  Seville,  signally  the  cathe 
dral  and  the  Giralda,  such  as  could  not  be  bought  for 

money  in  New  York. 

247 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

Then  we  set  out  on  our  return,  leaving  unvisited  to 
the  left  the  church  of  San  Isidoro  de  Campo,  with  its 
tombs  of  Guzman  the  Good  and  that  Better  Lady  Dona 
Urraca  Osorio,  whom  Peter  the  Cruel  had  burned.  I 
say  better,  because  I  hold  it  nobler  in  Urraca  to  have  re 
jected  the  love  of  a  wicked  king  than  in  Guzman  to  have 
let  the  Moors  slay  his  son  rather  than  surrender  a  city 
to  them.  But  I  could  only  pay  honor  to  her  pathetic 
memory  and  the  memory  of  that  nameless  handmaid  of 
hers  who  rushed  into  the  flames  to  right  the  garments 
on  the  form  which  the  wind  had  blown  them  away 
from,  and  so  perished  with  her.  We  had  to  take  on 
trust  from  the  guide-books  all  trace  of  the  Roman  town 
where  the  three  emperors  were  born,  and  whose  "  pal 
aces,  aqueducts,  and  temples  and  circus  were  magnifi 
cent."  We  had  bought  some  of  the  "  coins  daily  dug 
up,"  but  we  intrusted  to  the  elements  those  "  vestiges 
of  vestiges  "  left  of  Trajan's  palaces  after  an  envious 
earthquake  destroyed  them  so  lately  as  1755. 

The  one  incident  of  our  return  worthy  of  literature 
was  the  dramatic  triumph  of  a  woman  over  a  man  and 
a  mule  as  we  saw  it  exhibited  on  the  parapet  of  a  culvert 
over  a  dry  torrent's  bed.  It  was  the  purpose  of  this 
woman,  standing  on  the  coping  in  statuesque  relief  and 
showing  against  the  sky  the  comfortable  proportions  of 
the  Spanish  housewife,  to  mount  the  mule  behind  the 
man.  She  waited  patiently  while  the  man  slowly  and 
as  we  thought  faithlessly  urged  the  mule  to  the  parapet ; 
then,  when  she  put  out  her  hands  and  leaned  forward 
to  take  her  seat,  the  mule  inched  softly  away  and  left 
her  to  recover  her  balance  at  the  risk  of  a  fall  on  the 
other  side.  We  were  too  far  for  anything  but  the  dumb 
show,  but  there  were,  no  doubt,  words  which  conveyed 
her  opinions  unmistakably  to  both  man  and  mule.  With 
our  hearts  in  our  mouths  we  witnessed  the  scene  and  its 

248 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS    AND    INCIDENTS 

repetitions  till  we  could  bear  it  no  longer,  and  we  had 
bidden  our  cabman  drive  on  when  with  a  sudden  spring 
the  brave  woman  launched  herself  semicircularly  for 
ward  and  descended  upon  the  exact  spot  which  she  had 
been  aiming  at.  There  solidly  established  on  the  mule, 
with  her  arms  fast  round  the  man,  she  rode  off;  and 
I  do  not  think  any  reader  of  mine  would  like  to 
have  been  that  mule  or  that  man  for  the  rest  of  the  way 
home. 

We  met  many  other  mules,  much  more  exemplary, 
in  teams  of  two,  three,  and  four,  covered  with  bells 
and  drawing  every  kind  of  carryall  and  stage  and  omni 
bus.  These  vehicles  were  built  when  the  road  was, 
about  1750,  and  were,  like  the  road,  left  to  the  natural 
forces  for  keeping  themselves  in  repair.  The  natural 
forces  were  not  wholly  adequate  in  either  case,  but  the 
vehicles  were  not  so  thick  writh  dust  as  the  road,  be 
cause  they  could  shake  it  off.  They  had  each  two  or 
four  passengers  seated  with  the  driver ;  passengers  clus 
tered  over  the  top  and  packed  the  inside,  but  every 
one  was  in  the  joyous  mood  of  people  going  home  for 
the  day.  In  a  plaza  not  far  from  the  Triana  bridge 
you  may  see  these  decrepit  conveyances  assembling 
every  afternoon  for  their  suburban  journeys,  and  there 
is  no  more  picturesque  sight  in  Seville,  more  homelike, 
more  endearing.  Of  course,  when  I  say  this  I  leave 
out  of  the  count  the  bridge  over  the  Guadalquivir  at 
the  morning  or  evening  hour  when  it  is  covered  with 
brightly  caparisoned  donkeys,  themselves  covered  with 
men  needing  a  shave,  and  gay-kerchiefed  women  of 
every  age,  with  boys  and  dogs  underfoot,  and  pedes 
trians  of  every  kind,  and  hucksters  selling  sea-fruit  and 
land-fruit  and  whatever  else  the  stranger  would  rather 
see  than  eat.  Very  little  outcry  was  needed  for  the 

sale  of  these  things,  which  in  Naples  or  even  in  Venice 

249 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

would  have  been  attended  by  such  vociferation  as  would 
have  sufficed  to  proclaim  a  city  in  flames. 

On  a  day  not  long  after  our  expedition  to  Italica 
we  went  a  drive  with  a  young  American  friend  living 
in  Seville,  whom  I  look  to  for  a  book  about  that  famous 
city  such  as  I  should  like  to  write  myself  if  I  had  the 
time  to  live  it  as  he  has  done.  He  promised  that  he 
would  show  us  a  piece  of  the  old  Eoman  wall,  but  he 
showed  us  ever  so  much  more,  beginning  with  the  fore 
court  of  the  conventual  church  of  Santa  Paula,  where 
we  found  the  afternoon  light  waiting  to  illumine  for 
us  with  its  tender  caress  the  Luca  della  Eobbia-like 
colored  porcelain  figures  of  the  portal  and  the  beauti 
ful  octagon  tower  staying  a  moment  before  taking  flight 
for  heaven:  the  most  exquisite  moment  of  our  whole 
fortnight  in  Seville.  Tall  pots  of  flowers  stood  round, 
and  the  grass  came  green  through  the  crevices  of  the 
old  foot-worn  pavement.  When  we  passed  out  a  small 
boy  scuffled  for  our  copper  with  the  little  girl  who 
opened  the  gate  for  us,  but  was  brought  to  justice  by 
us,  and  joined  cheerfully  in  the  chorus  of  children 
chanting  "  Mo-ney,  mo-ney !"  round  us,  but  no  more 
expecting  an  answer  to  their  prayer  than  if  we  had  been 
saints  off  the  church  door. 

We  passed  out  of  the  city  by  a  gate  where  in  a  little 
coign  of  vantage  a  cobbler  was  thoughtfully  hammering 
away  in  the  tumult  at  a  shoe-sole,  and  then  suddenly  on 
our  right  we  had  the  Julian  wall:  not  a  mere  fragmient, 
but  a  good  long  stretch  of  it.  The  Moors  had  built  upon 
it  and  characterized  it,  but  had  not  so  masked  it  as  to 
hide  the  perdurable  physiognomy  of  the  Roman  work. 
It  was  vastly  more  Roman  wall  than  you  see  at  Rome ; 
but  far  better  than  this  heroic  image  of  war  and  waste 
was  the  beautiful  old  aqueduct,  perfectly  Roman  still, 
with  no  visible  touch  from  Moor,  or  from  Christian 

250 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS    AND     INCIDENTS 

before  or  after  the  Moor,  and  performing  its  beneficent 
use  after  two  thousand  years  as  effectively  as  in  the 
years  before  Christ  came  to  bless  the  peacemakers. 
Nine  miles  from  its  mountain  source  the  graceful  arches 
bring  the  water  on  their  shoulders;  and  though  there 
is  now  an  English  company  that  pipes  other  streams  to 
the  city  through  its  underground  mains,  the  Roman 
aqueduct,  eternally  sublime  in  its  usefulness,  is  con 
stant  to  the  purpose  of  the  forgotten  men  who  imagined 
it.  The  outer  surfaces  of  the  channel  which  it  lifted 
to  the  light  and  air  were  tagged  with  weeds  and  im 
memorial  mosses,  and  dripped  as  with  the  sweat  of  its 
twenty-centuried  toil. 

We  followed  it  as  far  as  it  went  on  our  way  to  a 
modern  work  of  peace  and  use  which  the  ancient  friend 
and  servant  of  man  would  feel  no  unworthy  rival.  Be 
yond  the  drives  and  gardens  of  the  Delicias,  where  we 
lingered  our  last  to  look  at  the  pleasurers  haunting 
them,  we  drove  far  across  the  wheat-fields  where  a  ship- 
canal  five  miles  long  is  cutting  to  rectify  the  curve  of 
the  Guadalquivir  and  bring  Seville  many  miles  nearer 
the  sea  than  it  has  ever  been  before ;  hitherto  the  tramp 
steamers  have  had  to  follow  the  course  of  the  ships 
of  Tarshish  in  their  winding  approach.  The  canal  is 
the  notion  of  the  young  king  of  Spain,  and  the  work 
on  it  goes  forward  night  and  day.  The  electric  lights 
were  shedding  their  blinding  glare  on  the  deafening 
clatter  of  the  excavating  machinery,  and  it  was  an  un 
worthy  relief  to  escape  from  the  intense  modernity  of 
the  scene  to  that  medieval  retreat  nearer  the  city  where 
the  aficionados  night-long  watch  the  bulls  coming  up 
from  their  pastures  for  the  fight  or  the  feast,  whichever 
you  choose  to  call  it,  of  the  morrow.  These  amateurs, 
whom  it  would  be  rude  to  call  sports,  lurk  in  the  way 
side  cafe  over  their  cups  of  chocolate  and  wait  till  in 
17  251 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

that  darkest  hour  before  dawn,  with  irregular  trampling 
and  deep  bellowing,  these  hapless  heroes  of  the  arena 
pass  on  to  their  doom.  It  is  a  great  thing  for  the 
aficionados  who  may  imagine  in  that  bellowing  the 
the  gladiator's  hail  of  Morituri  salutant.  At  any  rate, 
it  is  very  chic ;  it  gives  a  man  standing  in  Seville,  which 
disputes  with  Madrid  the  primacy  in  bull-feasting.  If 
the  national  capital  has  bull-feasting  every  Sunday  of 
the  year,  all  the  famous  torreros  come  from  Anda 
lusia,  with  the  bulls,  their  brave  antagonists,  and  in  the 
great  provincial  capital  there  are  bull-feasts  of  insur- 
passable,  if  not  incomparable,  splendor. 

Before  our  pleasant  drive  ended  we  passed,  as  we 
had  already  passed  several  times,  the  scene  of  the  fa 
mous  Feria  of  Seville,  the  cattle  show  which  draws  tens 
of  thousands  to  the  city  every  springtime  for  business 
and  pleasure,  but  mostly  pleasure.  The  Feria  focuses 
in  its  greatest  intensity  at  one  of  the  entrances  to  the 
Delicias,  wnere  the  street  is  then  so  dense  with  every 
sort  of  vehicle  that  people  can  cross  it  only  by  the 
branching  viaduct,  which  rises  in  two  several  ascents 
from  each  footway,  intersecting  at  top  and  delivering 
their  endless  multitudes  on  the  opposite  sidewalk. 
Along  the  street  are  gay  pavilions  and  cottages  where 
the  nobility  live  through  the  Feria  with  their  families 
and  welcome  the  public  to  the  sight  of  their  revelry 
through  the  open  doors  and  windows.  Then,  if  ever, 
the  stranger  may  see  the  dancing,  and  hear  the  singing 
and  playing  which  all  the  other  year  in  Seville  dis 
appoints  him  of. 


VIII 


On  the  eve  of  All  Saints,  after  we  had  driven  over 
the  worst  road  in  the  world  outside  of  Spain  or  Amer- 

252 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS     AND     INCIDENTS 

ica,  we  arrived  at  the  entrance  of  the  cemetery  where 
Baedeker  had  mysteriously  said  "  some  sort  of  fair  was 
held."  Then  we  perceived  that  we  were  present  at  the 
preparations  for  celebrating  one  of  the  most  affecting 
events  of  the  Spanish  year.  This  was  the  visit  of  kin 
dred  and  friends  bringing  tokens  of  remembrance  and 
affection  to  the  dead.  The  whole  long,  rough  way  we 
had  passed  them  on  foot,  and  at  the  cemetery  gate  we 
found  them  arriving  in  public  cabs,  as  well  as  in  private 
carriages,  with  the  dignity  and  gravity  of  smooth-shaven 
footmen  and  coachmen.  In  Spain  these  functionaries 
look  their  office  more  solemnly  even  than  in  England 
and  affect  you  as  peculiarly  correct  and  eighteenth- 
century.  But  apart  from  their  looks  the  occasion 
seemed  more  a  festivity  than  a  solemnity.  The  people 
bore  flowers,  mostly  artificial,  as  well  as  lanterns,  and 
within  the  cemetery  they  were  furbishing  up  the  monu 
ments  with  every  appliance  according  to  the  material, 
scrubbing  the  marble,  whitewashing  the  stucco,  and  re 
painting  the  galvanized  iron.  The  lanterns  were  made 
to  match  the  monuments  and  fences  architecturally,  and 
the  mourners  were  attaching  them  with  a  gentle  satis 
faction  in  their  fitness;  I  suppose  they  were  to  be 
lighted  at  dark  and  to  burn  through  the  night.  There 
were  men  among  the  mourners,  but  most  of  them  were 
women  and  children;  some  were  weeping,  like  a  father 
leading  his  two  little  ones,  and  an  old  woman  grieving 
for  her  dead  with  tears.  But  what  prevailed  was  a  com 
munity  of  quiet  resignation,  almost  to  the  sort  of  cheer 
fulness  which  bereavement  sometimes  knows.  The 
scene  was  tenderly  affecting,  but  it  had  a  tremendous 
touch  of  tragic  setting  in  the  long,  straight  avenue  of 
black  cypresses  which  slimly  climbed  the  upward  slope 
from  the  entrance  to  the  farther  bound  of  the  cemetery. 

Otherwise  there  was  only  the  patience  of  entire  faith 

253 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

in  this  annually  recurring  visit  of  the  living  to  the 
dead:  the  fixed  belief  that  these  should  rise  from  the 
places  where  they  lay,  and  they  who  survived  them  for 
yet  a  little  more  of  time  should  join  them  from  what 
ever  end  of  the  earth  in  the  morning  of  the  Last  Day. 

All  along  I  have  been  shirking  what  any  right- 
minded  traveler  would  feel  almost  his  duty,  but  I  now 
own  that  there  is  a  museum  in  Seville,  the  Museo  Pro 
vincial,  which  was  of  course  once  a  convent  and  is  now 
a  gallery,  with  the  best,  but  not  the  very  best,  Murillos 
in  it,  not  to  speak  of  the  best  Zurburans.  I  will  not 
speak  at  all  of  those  pictures,  because  I  could  in  no  wise 
say  what  they  were,  or  were  like,  and  because  I  would 
not  have  the  reader  come  to  them  with  any  opinions  of 
mine  which  he  might  bring  away  with  him  in  the  belief 
that  they  were  his  own.  Let  him  not  fail  to  go  to  the 
museum,  however;  he  will  be  the  poorer  beyond  cal 
culation  if  he  does  not;  but  he  will  be  a  beggar  if  he 
does  not  go  to  the  Hospital  de  la  Caridad,  where  in  the 
church  he  will  find  six  Murillos  out-Murilloing  any 
others  excepting  always  the  incomparable  "  Vision  of 
St.  Anthony  "  in  the  cathedral.  We  did  not  think  of 
those  six  Murillos  when  we  went  to  the  hospital;  we 
knew  nothing  of  the  peculiar  beauty  and  dignity  of  the 
church ;  but  we  came  because  we  wished  to  see  what  the 
repentance  of  a  man  could  do  for  others  after  a  youth 
spent  in  wicked  riot.  The  gentle,  pensive  little  Mother 
who  received  us  carefully  said  at  once  that  the  hospital 
was  not  for  the  sick,  but  only  for  the  superannuated 
and  the  poor  and  friendless  who  came  to  pass  a  night 
or  an  indefinite  time  in  it,  according  to  the  "pressure 
of  their  need;  and  after  showing  us  the  rich  little 
church,  she  led  us  through  long,  clean  corridors  where 
old  men  lay  in  their  white  beds  or  sat  beside  them  eat 
ing  their  breakfasts,  very  savory-looking,  out  of  ample 

254 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS    AND     INCIDENTS 

white  bowls.  Some  of  them  'saluted  us,  but  the  others 
we  excused  because  they  were  so  preoccupied.  In  a 
special  room  set  apart  for  them  were  what  we  brutally 
call  tramps,  but  who  doubtless  are  known  in  Spain  for 
indigent  brethren  overtaken  on  their  wayfaring  with 
out  a  lodging  for  the  night.  Here  they  could  come  for 
it  and  cook  their  supper  and  breakfast  at  the  large  cir 
cular  fireplace  which  filled  one  end  of  their  room.  They 
rose  at  our  entrance  and  bowed ;  and  how  I  wish  I 
could  have  asked  them,  every  one,  about  their  lives ! 

There  was  nothing  more  except  the  doubt  of  that  dear 
little  Mother  when  I  gave  her  a  silver  dollar  for 
her  kindness.  She  seemed  surprised  and  worried,  and 
asked,  "  Is  it  for  the  charity  or  for  me  ?"  What  could 
I  do  but  answer,  "  Oh,  for  your  Grace,"  and  add  an 
other  for  the  charity.  She  still  looked  perplexed,  but 
there  was  no  way  out  of  our  misunderstanding,  if  it 
was  one,  and  we  left  her  with  her  sweet,  troubled  face 
between  the  white  wings  of  her  cap,  like  angel's  wings 
mounting  to  it  from  her  shoulders.  Then  we  went  to 
look  at  the  statue  of  the  founder  bearing  a  hapless 
stranger  in  his  arms  in  a  space  of  flowers  before  the 
hospital,  where  a  gardener  kept  watch  that  no  visitor 
should  escape  without  a  bunch  worth  at  least  a  peseta. 
He  had  no  belief  that  the  peseta  could  possibly  be  for 
the  charity,  and  the  poverty  of  the  poor  neighborhood 
was  so  much  relieved  by  the  mere  presence  of  the  hos 
pital  that  it  begged  of  us  very  little  as  we  passed 
through. 

IX 

We  had  expected  to  go  to  Granada  after  a  weel  iti 
Seville,  but  man  is  always  proposing  beyond  his  dis 
posing  in  strange  lands  as  well  as  at  home,  and  we 

255 


FAMILIAR  SPANISH  TRAVELS 

were  fully  a  fortnight  in  the  far  lovelier  capital.  In 
the  mean  time  we  had  changed  from  our  rooms  in  the 
rear  of  the  hotel  to  others  in  the  front,  where  we  entered 
intimately  into  the  life  of  the  Plaza  San  Fernando  as 
far  as  we  might  share  it  from  our  windows.  It  was 
not  very  active  life;  even  the  cabmen  whose  neat  vic 
torias  bordered  the  place  on  three  sides  were  not  eager 
for  custom ;  they  invited  the  stranger,  but  they  did  not 
urge;  there  was  a  continual  but  not  a  rapid  passing 
through  the  ample  oblong ;  there  was  a  good  deal  of  still 
life  on  the  benches  where  leisure  enjoyed  the  feathery 
shadow  of  the  palms,  for  the  sun  was  apt  to  be  too  hot 
at  the  hour  of  noon,  though  later  it  conduced  to  the 
slumber  which  in  Spain  accompanies  the  digestion  of 
the  midday  meal  in  all  classes.  As  the  afternoon  ad 
vanced  numbers  of  little  girls  came  into  the  plaza  and 
played  children's  games  which  seemed  a  translation  of 
games  familiar  to  our  own  country.  One  evening  a 
small  boy  was  playing  with  them,  but  after  a  while  he 
seemed  to  be  found  unequal  to  the  sport;  he  was  ejected 
from  the  group  and  went  off  gloomily  to  grieve  apart 
with  his  little  thumb  in  his  mouth.  The  sight  of  his 
dignified  desolation  was  insupportable,  and  we  tried 
what  a  copper  of  the  big-dog  value  would  do  to  comfort 
him.  He  took  it  without  looking  up  and  ran  away  to 
the  peanut-stand  which  is  always  steaming  at  the  first 
corner  all  over  Christendom.  Late  in  the  evening — in 
fact,  after  the  night  had  fairly  fallen — we  saw  him 
making  his  way  into  a  house  fronting  on  the  plaza.  He 
tried  at  the  door  with  one  hand  and  in  the  other  he 
held  an  unexhausted  bag  of  peanuts.  He  had  wasted 
no  word  of  thanks  on  us,  and  he  did  not  now.  When 
he  got  the  door  open  he  backed  into  the  interior  still 
facing  us  and  so  fading  from  our  sight  and  knowledge. 

He  had  the  touch  of  comedv  which  makes  pathos 
256 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS    AND    INCIDENTS 

endurable,  but  another  incident  was  wholly  pathetic. 
As  we  came  out  of  an  antiquity  shop  near  the  cathedral 
one  afternoon  we  found  on  the  elevated  footway  near 
the  Gate  of  Pardon  a  mother  and  daughter,  both  of 
the  same  second  youth,  who  gently  and  jointly  pro 
nounced  to  us  the  magical  word  encajes.  Rather,  they 
questioned  us  with  it,  and  they  only  suggested,  very 
forbearingly,  that  we  should  come  to  their  house  with 
them  to  see  those  laces,  which  of  course  were  old  laces ; 
their  house  was  quite  near.  But  that  one  of  us  twain 
who  was  singly  concerned  in  encajes  had  fatigued  and 
perhaps  overbought  herself  at  the  antiquity  shop,  and 
she  signified  a  regret  which  they  divined  too  well  was 
dissent.  They  looked  rather  than  expressed  a  keen 
little  disappointment;  the  mother  began  a  faint  insist 
ence,  but  the  daughter  would  not  suffer  it.  Here  was 
the  pride  of  poverty,  if  not  poverty  itself,  and  it  was 
with  a  pang  that  we  parted  from  these  mutely  appealing 
ladies.  We  could  not  have  borne  it  if  we  had  not  in 
stantly  promised  ourselves  to  come  the  next  day  and 
meet  them  and  go  home  with  them  and  buy  all  their 
encajes  that  we  had  money  for.  We  kept  our  promise, 
and  we  came  the  next  day  and  the  next  and  every  day 
we  remained  in  Seville,  and  lingered  so  long  that  we 
implanted  in  the  cabmen  beside  the  curbing  the  inex 
tinguishable  belief  that  we  were  in  need  of  a  cab;  but 
we  never  saw  those  dear  ladies  again. 

These  are  some  of  the  cruel  memories  which  the 
happiest  travel  leaves,  and  I  gratefully  recall  that  in 
the  case  of  a  custodian  of  the  Columbian  Museum, 
which  adjoins  the  cathedral,  we  did  not  inflict  a  pang 
that  rankled  in  our  hearts  for  long.  I  gave  him  a 
handful  of  copper  coins  which  I  thought  made  up  a 
peseta,  but  his  eyes  were  keener,  and  a  sorrow  gloomed 

his  brow  which  projected  its  shadow  so  darkly  over 

257 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

us  when  we  went  into  the  cathedral  for  one  of  our 
daily  looks  that  we  hastened  to  return  and  make  up 
the  full  peseta  with  another  heap  of  coppers;  a  whole 
sunburst  of  smiles  illumined  his  face,  and  a  rainbow 
of  the  brightest  colors  arched  our  sky  and  still  arches 
it  whenever  we  think  of  that  custodian  and  his  re 
habilitated  trust  in  man. 

This  seems  the  crevice  where  I  can  crowd  in  the  fact 
that  bits  of  family  wash  hung  from  the  rail  of  the  old 
pulpit  in  the  Court  of  Oranges  beside  the  cathedral, 
and  a  pumpkin  vine  lavishly  decorated  an  arcade  near 
a  doorway  which  perhaps  gave  into  the  dwelling  of  that 
very  custodian.  At  the  same  time  I  must  not  fail  to 
urge  the  reader's  seeing  the  Columbian  Museum,  which 
is  richly  interesting  and  chiefly  for  those  Latin  and 
Italian  authors  annotated  by  the  immortal  admiral's 
own  hand.  These  give  the  American  a  sense  of  him  as 
the  discoverer  of  our  hemisphere  which  nothing  else 
could,  and  insurpassably  render  the  ]^ew  World  cred 
ible.  At  the  same  time  they  somehow  bring  a  lump  of 
pity  and  piety  into  the  throat  at  the  thought  of  the 
things  he  did  and  suffered.  They  bring  him  from  his 
tory  and  make  him  at  home  in  the  beholder's  heart, 
and  there  seems  a  mystical  significance  in  the  fact  that 
the  volume  most  abounding  in  marginalia  should  be 
Seneca's  Prophecies. 

The  frequent  passing  of  men  as  well  as  women  and 
children  through  our  Plaza  San  Fernando  and  the 
prevalence  of  men  asleep  on  the  benches ;  the  immense 
majority  of  boys  everywhere;  the  moralized  abattoir 
outside  the  walls  where  the  humanity  dormant  at  the 
bull-feast  wakes  to  hide  every  detail  of  slaughter  for 
the  market ;  a  large  family  of  cats  basking  at  their  ease 
in  a  sunny  doorway;  trains  of  milch  goats  with  wicker 
muzzles,  led  by  a  milch  cow  from  door  to  door  through 

258 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS     AND     INCIDENTS 

the  streets ;  the  sudden  solemn  beauty  of  the  high  altar 
in  the  cathedral,  seen  by  chance  on  a  brilliant  day; 
the  bright,  inspiriting  air  of  Seville ;  a  glorious  glimpse 
of  the  Giralda  coming  home  from  a  drive;  the  figure 
of  a  girl  outlined  in  a  lofty  window;  a  middle-aged 
Finnish  pair  trying  to  give  themselves  in  murmured 
talk  to  the  colored  stucco  of  the  Hall  of  the  Ambassadors 
in  what  seems  their  wedding  journey;  two  artists  work 
ing  near  with  sketches  tilted  against  the  wall;  a  large 
American  lady  who  arrives  one  forenoon  in  traveling 
dress  and  goes  out  after  luncheon  in  a  mantilla  with  a 
fan  and  high  comb;  another  American  lady  who  ap 
pears  after  dinner  in  the  costume  of  a  Spanish  dancing- 
girl;  the  fact  that  there  is  no  Spanish  butter  and  that 
the  only  good  butter  comes  from  France  and  the  pass 
able  butter  from  Denmark;  the  soft  long  veils  of  pink 
cloud  that  trail  themselves  in  the  sky  across  our  Plaza, 
and  then  dissolve  in  the  silvery  radiance  of  the  gibbous 
moon;  the  yellowish-red  electric  Brush  lights  swinging 
from  palm  to  palm  as  in  the  decoration  of  some  vast 
ballroom;  a  second  drive  through  Triana,  and  a  fail 
ure  to  reach  the  church  we  set  out  for;  the  droves  of 
brown  pigs  and  flocks  of  brown  sheep;  the  goatherds 
unloading  olive  boughs  in  the  fields  for  the  goats  to 
browse;  a  dirty,  kind,  peaceful  village,  with  an  Eng 
lish  factory  in  it,  and  a  mansion  of  galvanized  iron 
with  an  automobile  before  it;  a  pink  villa  on  a  hill 
side  and  a  family  group  on  the  shoulder  of  a  high- 
walled  garden ;  a  girl  looking  down  from  the  wall,  and 
a  young  man  resting  his  hand  on  the  masonry  and  look 
ing  up  at  her;  the  good  faces  of  the  people,  men  and 
women;  boys  wrestling  and  frolicking  in  the  village 
streets;  the  wide  dust-heap  of  a  road,  full  of  sudden 
holes;  the  heat  of  the  sun  in  the  first  November  week 

after  touches  of  cold;  the  tram-cars  that  wander  from 

259 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

one  side  of  the  city  street  to  the  other,  and  then  barely 
miss  scraping  the  house  walls ;  in  our  drive  home  from 
our  failure  for  that  church,  men  with  trains  of  oxen 
plowing  and  showing  against  the  round  red  rayless 
sun;  a  stretch  of  the  river  with  the  crimson-hulled 
steamers,  and  a  distant  sail-boat  seen  across  the  fields; 
the  gray  moon  that  burnishes  itself  and  rides  bright  and 
high  for  our  return;  people  in  balconies,  and  the  air 
full  of  golden  dust  shot  with  bluish  electric  lights ;  here 
is  a  handful  of  suggestions  from  my  note-book  which 
each  and  every  one  would  expand  into  a  chapter  or  a 
small  volume  under  the  intensive  culture  which  the 
reader  may  well  have  come  to  dread.  But  I  fling  them 
all  down  here  for  him  to  do  what  he  likes  with,  and 
turn  to  speak  at  more  length  of  the  University,  or, 
rather  the  University  Church,  which  I  would  not  have 
any  reader  of  mine  fail  to  visit. 


With  my  desire  to  find  likeness  rather  than  difference 
in  strange  peoples,  I  was  glad  to  have  two  of  the  stu 
dents  loitering  in  the  patio  play  just  such  a  trick  on  a 
carter  at  the  gate  as  school-boys  might  play  in  our  own 
land.  While  his  back  was  turned  they  took  his  whip 
and  hid  it  and  duly  triumphed  in  his  mystification  and 
dismay.  We  did  not  wait  for  the  catastrophe,  but  by 
the  politeness  of  another  student  found  the  booth  of  the 
custodian,  who  showed  us  to  the  library.  A  noise  of 
recitation  from  the  windows  looking  into  the  patio  fol 
lowed  us  up-stairs;  but  maturer  students  were  reading 
at  tables  in  the  hushed  library,  and  at  a  large  central 
table  a  circle  of  grave  authorities  of  some  sort  were 
smoking  the  air  blue  with  their  cigarettes.  One,  who 

260 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS     AND     INCIDENTS 

seemed  chief  among  them,  rose  and  bowed  us  into  the 
freedom  of  the  place,  and  again  rose  and  bowed  when 
we  went  out.  We  did  not  stay  long,  for  a  library  is  of 
the  repellent  interest  of  a  wine-cellar;  unless  the  books 
or  bottles  are  broached  it  is  useless  to  linger.  There 
are  eighty  thousand  volumes  in  that  library,  but  we 
had  to  come  away  without  examining  half  of  them. 
The  church  was  more  appreciable,  and  its  value  was 
enhanced  to  us  by  the  reluctance  of  the  stiff  old  sacristan 
to  unlock  it.  We  found  it  rich  in  a  most  wonderful 
retablo  carved  in  wood  and  painted.  Besides  the  ex 
cellent  pictures  at  the  high  altar,  there  are  two  portrait 
brasses  which  were  meant  to  be  recumbent,  but  which 
are  stood  up  against  the  wall,  perhaps  to  their  surprise, 
without  loss  of  impressiveness.  Most  notable  of  all  is 
the  mural  tomb  of  Pedro  Enriquez  de  Ribera  and  his 
wife :  he  who  built  the  Casa  de  Pilatos,  and  as  he  had 
visited  the  Holy  Land  was  naturally  fabled  to  have 
copied  it  from  the  House  of  Pilate.  Now,  as  if  still 
continuing  his  travels,  he  reposes  with  his  wife  in  a 
sort  of  double-decker  monument,  where  the  Evil  One 
would  have  them  suggest  to  the  beholder  the  notion  of 
passengers  in  the  upper  and  lower  berths  of  a  Pullman 
sleeper. 

Of  all  the  Spanish  cities  that  I  saw,  Seville  was  the 
most  charming,  not  for  those  attributive  blandishments 
of  the  song  and  dance  which  the  tourist  is  supposed  to 
find  it,  but  which  we  quite  failed  of,  but  for  the  simpler 
and  less  conventional  amiabilities  which  she  was  so  rich 
in.  I  have  tried  to  hint  at  these,  but  really  one  must 
go  to  Seville  for  them  and  let  them  happen  as  they 
will.  Many  happened  in  our  hotel  where  we  liked 
everybody,  from  the  kindly,  most  capable  Catalonian 
head  waiter  to  the  fine-headed  little  Napoleonic-looking 

waiter  who  had  identified  us  at  San  Sebastian  as  Ameri- 

261 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

cans,  because  we  spoke  "  quicklier  "  than  the  English, 
and  who  ran  to  us  when  we  came  into  the  hotel  and 
shook  hands  with  us  as  if  we  were  his  oldest  and  dear 
est  friends.  There  was  a  Swiss  concierge  who  could 
not  be  bought  for  money,  and  the  manager  was  the 
mirror  of  managers.  Fancy  the  landlord  of  the  Wal 
dorf-Astoria,  or  the  St.  Regis,  coming  out  on  the  side 
walk  and  beating  down  a  taxicabman  from  a  charge  of 
fifteen  pesetas  to  six  for  a  certain  drive!  It  is  not 
thinkable,  and  yet  the  like  of  it  happened  to  us  in 
Seville  from  our  manager.  It  was  not  his  fault,  when 
our  rear  apartment  became  a  little  too  chill,  and  we 
took  a  parlor  in  the  front  and  came  back  on  the  first 
day  hoping  to  find  it  stored  full  of  the  afternoon  sun's 
warmth,  but  found  that  the  camerera  had  opened  the 
windows  and  closed  the  shutters  in  our  absence  so  that 
our  parlor  was  of  a  frigidity  which  no  glitter  of  the 
electric  light  could  temper.  The  halls  and  public  rooms 
were  chill  in  anticipation  and  remembrance  of  any 
cold  outside,  but  in  our  parlor  there  was  a  hole  for  the 
sort  of  stove  which  we  saw  in  the  reading-room,  twice 
as  large  as  an  average  teakettle,  with  a  pipe  as  big 
around  as  the  average  rain-pipe.  I  am  sure  this  ap 
paratus  would  have  heated  us  admirably,  but  the 
weather  grew  milder  and  milder  and  we  never  had 
occasion  to  make  the  successful  experiment.  Mean 
while  the  moral  atmosphere  of  the  hotel  was  of  a  bland- 
ness  which  would  have  gone  far  to  content  us  with  any 
meteorological  perversity.  When  we  left  it  we  were  on 
those  human  terms  with  every  one  who  ruled  or  served 
in  it  which  one  never  attains  in  an  American  hotel,  and 
rarely  in  an  English  one. 

At  noon  on  the  4th  of  November  the  sun  was  really 
hot  in  our  plaza:  but  we  were  instructed  that  before 

the  winter  was  over  there  would  be  cold  enough,  not 

262 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS     AND     INCIDENTS 

of  great  frosty  severity,  of  course,  but  nasty  and  hard 
to  bear  in  the  summer  conditions  which  prevail  through 
the  year.  I  wish  I  could  tell  how  the  people  live  then 
in  their  beautiful,  cool  houses,  but  I  do  not  know,  and 
I  do  not  know  how  they  live  at  any  season  except  from 
the  scantiest  hearsay.  The  women  remain  at  home  ex 
cept  when  they  go  to  church  or  to  drive  in  the  Delicias 
— that  is  to  say,  the  women  of  society,  of  the  nobility. 
There  is  no  society  in  our  sense  among  people  of  the 
middle  classes ;  the  men  when  they  are  not  at  business 
are  at  the  cafe ;  the  women  when  they  are  not  at  mass 
are  at  home.  That  is  what  we  were  told,  and  yet  at  a 
moving-picture  show  we  saw  many  women  of  the  middle 
as  well  as  the  lower  classes.  The  frequent  holidays 
afford  them  an  outlet,  and  indoors  they  constantly  see 
their  friends  and  kindred  at  their  tertulias. 

The  land  is  in  large  holdings  which  are  managed 
by  the  factors  or  agents  of  the  noble  proprietors.  These, 
when  they  are  not  at  Madrid,  are  to  be  found  at  their 
clubs,  where  their  business  men  bring  them  papers  to 
be  signed,  often  unread.  This  sounds  a  little  romantic, 
and  perhaps  it  is  not  true.  Some  gentlemen  take  a  great 
interest  in  the  bull-feasts  and  breed  the  bulls  and  cul 
tivate  the  bull-fighters;  what  other  esthetic  interests 
they  have  I  do  not  know.  All  classes  are  said  to  be 
of  an  Oriental  philosophy  of  life;  they  hold  that  the 
English  striving  and  running  to  and  fro  and  seeing 
strange  countries  comes  in  the  end  to  the  same  thing 
as  sitting  still;  and  why  should  they  bother?  There 
is  something  in  that,  but  one  may  sit  still  too  much; 
the  Spanish  ladies,  as  I  many  times  heard,  do  overdo 
it.  Not  only  they  do  not  walk  abroad;  they  do  not 
walk  at  home ;  everything  is  carried  to  and  from  them ; 
they  do  not  lift  hand  or  foot.  The  consequence  is  that 
they  have  very  small  hands  and  feet;  Gautier,  who 

263 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

seems  to  have  grown  tired  when  he  reached  Seville, 
and  has  comparatively  little  to  say  of  it,  says  that  a 
child  may  hold  a  Sevillian  lady's  foot  in  its  hand;  he 
does  not  say  he  saw  it  done.  What  is  true  is  that  no 
child  could  begin  to  clasp  with  both  hands  the  waist 
of  an  average  Sevillian  lady.  But  here  again  the  rule 
has  its  exceptions  and  will  probably  have  more.  Not 
only  is  the  English  queen-consort  stimulating  the  Anda- 
lusian  girls  to  play  tennis  by  her  example  when  she 
comes  to  Seville,  but  it  has  somehow  become  the  fashion 
for  ladies  of  all  ages  to  leave  their  carriages  in  the 
Delicias  and  walk  up  and  down ;  we  saw  at  least  a  dozen 
doing  it. 

Whatever  flirting  and  intriguing  goes  on,  the  public 
sees  nothing  of  it.  In  the  street  there  is  no  gleam  of 
sheep's-eying  or  any  manner  of  indecorum.  The  women 
look  sensible  and  good,  and  I  should  say  the  same  of 
the  men ;  the  stranger's  experience  must  have  been  more 
unfortunate  than  mine  if  he  has  had  any  unkindness 
from  them.  One  heard  that  Spanish  women  do  not 
smoke,  unless  they  are  cigarreras  and  work  in  the 
large  tobacco  factory,  where  the  "  Carmen  "  tradition 
has  given  place  to  the  mother-of-a-family  type,  with 
her  baby  on  the  floor  beside  her.  Even  these  may  pre 
fer  not  to  set  the  baby  a  bad  example  and  have  her  grow 
up  and  smoke  like  those  English  and  American  women. 
The  strength  of  the  Church  is,  of  course,  in  the 
women's  faith,  and  its  strength  is  unquestionable,  if 
not  quite  unquestioned.  In  Seville,  as  I  have  said,  there 
are  two  Spanish  Protestant  churches,  and  their  worship 
is  not  molested.  Society  does  not  receive  their  mem 
bers;  but  we  heard  that  with  most  Spanish  people 
Protestantism  is  a  puzzle  rather  than  offense.  They 
know  we  are  not  Jews,  but  Christians;  yet  we  are  not 

Catholics;  and  what,  then,  are  we?    With  the  Protes- 

264 


SEVILLIAN    ASPECTS     AND     INCIDENTS 

tants,  as  with  the  Catholics,  there  is  always  religious 
marriage.  There  is  civil  marriage  for  all,  but  without 
the  religious  rite  the  pair  are  not  well  seen  by  either 
sect. 

It  is  said  that  the  editor  of  the  ablest  paper  in 
Madrid,  which  publishes  a  local  edition  at  Seville,  is 
a  Protestant.  The  queen  mother  is  extrem'ely  clerical, 
though  one  of  the  wisest  and  best  women  who  ever 
ruled;  the  king  and  queen  consort  are  as  liberal  as 
possible,  and  the  king  is  notoriously  a  democrat,  with 
a  dash  of  Haroun  al  Rashid.  He  likes  to  take  his 
governmental  subordinates  unawares,  and  a  story  is 
told  of  his  dropping  in  at  the  post-office  on  a  late  visit 
to  Seville,  and  asking  for  the  chief.  Hje  was  out,  and 
so  were  all  the  subordinate  officials  down  to  the  lowest, 
whom  the  king  found  at  his  work.  The  others  have 
since  been  diligent  at  theirs.  The  story  is  characteristic 
of  the  king,  if  not  of  the  post-office  people. 

Political  freedom  is  almost  grotesquely  unrestricted. 
In  our  American  republic  we  should  scarcely  tolerate  a 
party  in  favor  of  a  monarchy,  but  in  the  Spanish  mon 
archy  a  republican  party  is  recognized  and  represented. 
It  holds  public  meetings  and  counts  among  its  members 
many  able  and  distinguished  men,  such  as  the  novelist 
Perez  Galdos,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  novelists  not 
only  in  Spain  but  in  Europe.  With  this  unbounded 
liberty  in  Andalusia,  it  is  said  that  the  Spaniards  of 
the  north  are  still  more  radical. 

Though  the  climate  is  most  favorable  for  consump 
tives,  the  habits  of  the  people  are  so  unwholesome  that 
tuberculosis  prevails,  and  there  are  two  or  three  deaths 
a  day  from  it  in  Seville.  There  is  no  avoidance  of 
tuberculous  suspects;  they  cough,  and  the  men  spit 
everywhere  in  the  streets  and  on  the  floors  and  carpets 

of  the  clubs.    The  women  suffer  for  want  of  fresh  air, 

265 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

though  now  with  the  example  of  the  English  queen  be 
fore  them  and  the  young  girls  who  used  to  lie  abed  till 
noon  getting  up  early  ta  play  tennis,  it  will  be  dif 
ferent.  Their  mothers  and  aunts  still  drive  to  the 
Delicias  to  prove  that  they  have  carriages,  but  when 
there  they  alight  and  walk  up  and  down  by  their  doctor's 
advice. 

I  only  know  that  during  our  fortnight  in  Seville  I 
suffered  no  wound  to  a  sensibility  which  has  been  kept 
in  full  repair  for  literary,  if  not  for  humanitarian 
purposes.  The  climate  was  as  kind  as  the  people.  It 
is  notorious  that  in  summer  the  heat  is  that  of  a  furnace, 
but  even  then  it  is  bearable  because  it  is  a  dry  heat, 
like  that  of  our  indoor  furnaces.  The  5th  of  Novem 
ber  was  our  last  day,  and  then  it  was  too  hot  for  com 
fort  in  the  sun,  but  one  is  willing  to  find  the  November 
sun  too  hot;  it  is  an  agreeable  solecism;  and  I  only 
wish  that  we  could  have  found  the  sun  too  hot  during 
the  next  three  days  in  Granada.  If  the  5th  of  Novem 
ber  had  been  worse  for  heat  than  it  was  it  must  still 
remain  dear  in  our  memory,  because  in  the  afternoon 
we  met  once  more  these  Chilians  of  our  hearts  whom 
we  had  met  in  San  Sebastian  and  Burgos  and  Vallado- 
lid  and  Madrid.  We  knew  we  should  meet  them  in 
Seville  and  were  not  the  least  surprised.  They  were 
as  glad  and  gay  as  ever,  and  in  our  common  polyglot 
they  possessed  us  of  the  fact  that  they  had  just  com 
pleted  the  eastern  hemicycle  of  their  Peninsular  tour. 
They  were  latest  from  Malaga,  and  now  they  were  going 
northward.  It  was  our  last  meeting,  but  better  friends 
I  could  not  hope  to  meet  again,  whether  in  the  Old 
World  or  the  New,  or  that  Other  World  which  we  hope 
will  somehow  be  the  summation  of  all  that  is  best  in 
both. 


XI 
TO    AND    IN    GKANADA 

THE  train  which  leaves  Seville  at  ten  of  a  sunny 
morning  is  supposed  to  arrive  in  Granada  at  seven  of 
a  moonlight  evening.  This  is  a  mistake ;  the  moonlight 
is  on  time,  hut  the  train  arrives  at  a  quarter  of  nine. 
Still,  if  the  day  has  been  sunny  the  whole  way  and 
the  moonlight  is  there  at  the  end,  no  harm  has  really 
been  done ;  and  measurably  the  promise  of  the  train  has 
been  kept. 


There  was  not  a  moment  of  the  long  journey  over 
the  levels  of  Andalusia  which  was  not  charming ;  when 
it  began  to  be  over  the  uplands  of  the  last  Moorish 
kingdom,  it  was  richly  impressive.  The  only  thing 
that  I  can  remember  against  the  landscape  is  the  preva 
lence  of  olive  orchards.  I  hailed  as  a  relief  the  stubble- 
fields  immeasurably  spread  at  times,  and  I  did  not  al 
ways  resent  the  roadside  planting  of  some  sort  of  tall 
hedges  which  now  and  then  hid  the  olives.  But  olive 
orchards  may  vary  their  monotony  by  the  spectacle  of 
peasants  on  ladders  gathering  their  fruit  into  wide- 
mouthed  sacks,  and  occasionally  their  ranks  of  sym 
metrical  green  may  be  broken  by  the  yellow  and  red  of 
poplars  and  pomegranates  around  the  pleasant  farm 
steads.  The  nearer  we  drew  to  Granada  the  pleasanter 

18  267 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

these  grew,  till  in  the  famous  Vega  they  thickly  dotted 
the  landscape  with  their  brown  roofs  and  white  walls. 

We  had  not  this  effect  till  we  had  climbed  the  first 
barrier  of  hills  and  began  to  descend  on  the  thither  side ; 
but  we  had  incident  enough  to  keep  us  engaged  without 
the  picturesqueness.  The  beggars  alone,  who  did  not 
fail  us  at  any  station,  were  enough ;  for  what  could  the 
most  exacting  tourist  ask  more  than  to  be  eating  his 
luncheon  under  the  eyes  of  the  children  who  besieged 
his  car  windows  and  protested  their  famine  in  accents 
which  would  have  melted  a  heart  of  stone  or  of  anything 
less  obdurate  than  travel  ?  We  had  always  our  brace 
of  Civil  Guards,  who  preserved  us  from  bandits,  but 
they  left  the  beggars  unmolested  by  getting  out  on  the 
train  next  the  station  and  pacing  the  platform,  while 
the  rabble  of  hunger  thronged  us  on  the  other  side. 
There  was  especially  a  boy  who,  after  being  compas 
sionated  in  money  for  his  misfortune,  continued  to  fling 
his  wooden  leg  into  the  air  and  wave  it  at  our  window 
by  some  masterly  gymnastics ;  and  there  was  another 
boy  who  kept  lamenting  that  he  had  no  mother,  till, 
having  duly  feed  and  fed  him,  I  suggested,  "  But  you 
have  a  father  ?"  Then,  as  if  he  had  never  seen  the  case 
in  that  light  before,  he  was  silent,  and  presently  went 
away  without  further  insistence  on  his  bereavement. 

The  laconic  fidelity  of  my  note-book  enables  me  to 
recall  here  that  the  last  we  saw  of  Seville  was  the 
Cathedral  and  the  Giralda,  which  the  guide-books  had 
promised  us  we  should  see  first;  that  we  passed  some 
fields  of  alfalfa  which  the  Moors  had  brought  from 
Africa  and  the  Spanish  have  carried  to  America;  that 
in  places  men  were  plowing  and  that  the  plowed  land 
was  red;  that  the  towns  on  the  uplands  in  the  distance 
Were  white  and  not  gray,  or  mud-colored,  as  in  Castile ; 

268 


TO    AND    IN    GKANADA 

that  the  morning  sky  was  blue,  with  thin,  pale  clouds ; 
that  the  first  station  out  was  charmingly  called  Two 
Brothers,  and  that  the  loungers  about  it  were  plain, 
but  kind-looking  men-folk  with  good  faces,  some  actual 
ly  clean-shaven,  and  a  woman  with  a  white  rose  in  her 
hair;  that  Two  Brothers  is  a  suburb  of  Seville,  fre 
quented  in  the  winter,  and  has  orange  orchards  about 
it;  that  farther  on  at  one  place  the  green  of  the  fields 
spread  up  to  the  walls  of  a  white  farm  with  a  fine  sense 
of  color ;  that  there  were  hawks  sailing  in  the  blue  air ; 
that  there  were  grotesque  hedges  of  cactus  and  piles  of 
crooked  cactus  logs;  that  there  were  many  eucalyptus 
trees;  that  there  were  plantations  of  young  olives,  as 
if  never  to  let  that  all-pervading  industry  perish ;  that 
there  were  irregular  mountain  ranges  on  the  right,  but 
never  the  same  kind  of  scenery  on  both  sides  of  the 
track;  that  there  was  once  a  white  cottage  on  a  yellow 
hill  and  a  pink  villa  with  two  towers ;  that  there  was  a 
solitary  fig  tree  near  the  road,  and  that  there  were  vast 
lonely  fields  when  there  were  not  olive  orchards. 

Taking  breath  after  one  o'clock,  much  restored  by  our 
luncheon,  my  note-book  remembers  a  gray-roofed,  yel 
low-walled  town,  very  suitable  for  a  water-color,  and 
just  beyond  it  the  first  vineyard  we  had  come  to.  Then 
there  were  pomegranate  trees,  golden-leaved,  and  tall 
poplars  pollarded  plume  fashion  as  in  southern  France ; 
and  in  a  field  a  herd  of  brown  pigs  feeding,  which  com 
mended  itself  to  observance,  doubtless,  as  color  in  some 
possible  word-painting.  There  now  abounded  pome 
granates,  figs,  young  corn,  and  more  and  more  olives; 
and  as  if  the  old  olives  and  young  olives  were  not 
enough,  the  earth  began  to  be  pitted  with  holes  dug 
for  the  olives  which  had  not  yet  been  planted. 

269 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 


ii 


At  Bobadilla,  the  junction  where  an  English  rail 
way  company  begins  to  get  in  its  work  and  to  animate 
the  Spanish  environment  to  unwonted  enterprise,  there 
was  a  varied  luncheon  far  past  our  capacity.  But  when 
a  Cockney  voice  asked  over  my  shoulder,  "  Tea,  sir  ?" 
I  gladly  closed  with  the  proposition.  "  But  you've  put 
hot.  milk  into  it !"  I  protested.  "  I  know  it,  sir.  We 
7ave  no  cold  milk  at  Bobadilla,"  and  instantly  a  baleful 
suspicion  implanted  itself  which  has  since  grown  into 
a  upas  tree  of  poisonous  conviction:  goat's  milk  does 
not  keep  well,  and  it  was  not  only  hot  milk,  but  hot 
goat's  milk  which  they  were  serving  us  at  Bobadilla. 
However,  there  were  admirable  ham  sandwiches,  not  of 
goat's  flesh,  at  the  other  end  of  the  room,  and  with 
these  one  could  console  oneself.  There  was  also  a  com 
mendable  pancake  whose  honored  name  I  never  knew, 
but  whose  acquaintance  I  should  be  sorry  not  to  have 
made;  and  all  about  Bobadilla  there  was  an  agreeable 
bustle,  which  we  enjoyed  the  more  when  we  had  made 
sure  that  we  had  changed  into  the  right  train  for  Gra 
nada  and  found  in  our  compartment  the  charming 
young  Swedish  couple  who  had  come  with  us  from 
Seville. 

Thoroughly  refreshed  by  the  tea  with  hot  goat's  milk 
in  it,  by  the  genuine  ham  sandwiches  and  the  pancakes, 
my  note-book  takes  up  the  tale  once  more.  It  dwells 
upon  the  rich  look  of  the  land  and  the  comfort  of  the 
farms  contrasting  with  the  wild  irregularity  of  the 
mountain  ranges  which  now  began  to  serrate  the  hori 
zon;  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  if  I  had  then  read  that 
most  charming  of  all  Washington  Irving's  Spanish 

studies,  the  story,  namely,  of  his  journey  over  quite 

270 


TO    AND    IN    GKANADA 

the  same  way  we  had  come  seventy-five  years  later,  my 
note-book  would  abound  in  lively  comment  on  the 
changed  aspect  of  the  whole  landscape.  Even,  as  it  is, 
I  find  it  exclamatory  over  the  wonder  of  the  mountain 
coloring  which  it  professes  to  have  found  green,  brown, 
red,  gray,  and  blue,  but  whether  all  at  once  or  not  it 
does  not  say.  It  is  more  definite  as  to  the  plain  we 
were  traversing,  with  its  increasing  number  of  white 
cottages,  cheerfully  testifying  to  the  distribution  of  the 
land  in  small  holdings,  so  different  from  the  vast  estates 
abandoned  to  homeless  expanses  of  wheat-fields  and 
olive  orchards  which  we  had  been  passing  through. 
It  did  not  appear  on  later  inquiry  that  these  small 
holdings  were  of  peasant  ownership,  as  I  could  have 
wished ;  they  were  tenant  farms,  but  their  neatness 
testified  to  the  prosperity  of  the  tenants,  and  their  fre 
quency  cheered  our  way  as  the  evening  waned  and  the 
lamps  began  to  twinkle  from  their  windows.  At  a 
certain  station,  I  am  reminded  by  my  careful  mentor, 
the  craggy  mountain-tops  were  softened  by  the  sun 
set  pink,  and  that  then  the  warm  afternoon  air  began 
to  grow  cooler,  and  the  dying  day  to  empurple  the  up 
lands  everywhere  without  abating  the  charm  of  the 
blithe  cottages.  It  seems  to  have  been  mostly  a  very 
homelike  scene,  and  where  there  was  a  certain  stretch 
of  woodland  its  loneliness  was  relieved  by  the  antic  feat 
of  a  goat  lifting  itself  on  its  hind  legs  to  browse  the 
olive  leaves  on  their  native  bough.  The  air  was  thinner 
and  cooler,  but  never  damp,  and  at  times  it  relented 
and  blew  lullingly  in  at  our  window.  We  made  such 
long  stops  that  the  lights  began  to  fade  out  of  the  farm 
windows,  but  kept  bright  in  the  villages,  when  at  a 
station  which  we  were  so  long  in  coming  to  that  we 
thought  it  must  be  next  to  Granada,  a  Spanish  gentle 
man  got  in  with  us ;  and  though  the  prohibitory  notice 

271 


FAMILIAK  SPANISH  TEAVELS 

of  No  Fumadores  stared  him  in  the  face,  it  did  not 
stare  him  out  of  countenance ;  for  he  continued  to  smoke 
like  a  locomotive  the  whole  way  to  our  journey's  end. 
From  time  to  time  I  meditated  a  severe  rebuke,  but 
in  the  end  I  made  him  none,  and  I  am  now  convinced 
that  this  was  wise,  for  he  probably  would  not  have 
minded  it,  and  as  it  was,  when  I  addressed  him  some 
commonplace  as  to  the  probable  time  of  our  arrival  he 
answered  in  the  same  spirit,  and  then  presently  grew 
very  courteously  communicative.  He  told  me  for  one 
thing,  after  we  had  passed  the  mountain  gates  of  the 
famous  Vega  and  were  making  our  way  under  the  moon 
light  over  the  storied  expanse,  drenched  with  the  blood 
of  battles  long  ago,  that  the  tall  chimneys  we  began  to 
see  blackening  the  air  with  their  volumed  fumes  were 
the  chimneys  of  fourteen  beet-root  sugar  factories  be 
longing  to  the  Duke  of  Wellington.  Then  I  divined, 
as  afterward  I  learned,  that  the  lands  devoted  to  this 
industry  were  part  of  the  rich  gift  which  Spain  be 
stowed  upon  the  Great  Duke  in  gratitude  for  his  ser 
vices  against  the  Napoleonic  invasion.  His  present  heir 
has  imagined  a  benevolent  use  of  his  heritage  by  in 
viting  the  peasantry  of  the  Vega  to  the  culture  of  the 
sugar-beet;  but  whether  the  enterprise  was  prospering 
I  could  not  say;  and  I  do  not  suppose  any  reader  of 
mine  will  care  so  much  for  it  as  I  did  in  the  pour  of 
the  moonlight  over  the  roofs  and  towers  that  were  now 
becoming  Granada,  and  quickening  my  slow  old  emo 
tions  to  a  youthful  glow.  At  the  station,  which,  in 
spite  of  Boabdil  el  Chico  and  Ferdinand  and  Isabel, 
was  quite  like  every  other  railway  station  of  southern 
Europe,  we  parted  friends  with  our  Spanish  fellow- 
traveler,  whom  we  left  smoking  and  who  is  probably 
smoking  still.  Then  we  mounted  with  our  Swedish 
friends  into  the  omnibus  of  the  hotel  we  had  chosen 

272 


TO    AND    IN    GRANADA 

and  which  began,  after  discreet  delays,  to  climb  the  hill 
town  toward  the  Alhambra  through  a  commonplace- 
looking  town  gay  with  the  lights  of  cafes  and  shops,  and 
to  lose  itself  in  the  more  congenial  darkness  of  narrower 
streets  barred  with  moonlight.  It  was  drawn  by  four 
mules,  covered  with  bells  and  constantly  coaxed  and 
cursed  by  at  least  two  drivers  on  the  box,  while  a  vigor 
ous  boy  ran  alongside  and  lashed  their  legs  without 
ceasing  till  we  reached  the  shelf  where  our  hotel 
perched. 


in 


I  had  taken  the  precaution  to  write  for  rooms,  and  we 
got  the  best  in  the  house,  or  if  not  that  then  the  best  we 
could  wish  at  a  price  which  I  could  have  wished  much 
less,  till  we  stepped  out  upon  our  balcony,  and  looked 
down  and  over  the  most  beautiful,  the  most  magnifi 
cent  scene  that  eyes,  or  at  least  my  eyes,  ever  dwelt  on. 
Beside  us  and  before  us  the  silver  cup  of  the  Sierra 
Nevada,  which  held  the  city  in  its  tiled  hollow,  poured 
it  out  over  the  immeasurable  Vega  washed  with  moon 
shine  which  brightened  and  darkened  its  spread  in  a 
thousand  radiances  and  obscurities  of  windows  and 
walls  and  roofs  and  trees  and  lurking  gardens.  Be 
cause  it  was  unspeakable  we  could  not  speak,  but  I  may 
say  now  that  this  was  our  supreme  moment  of  Granada. 
There  were  other  fine  moments,  but  none  unmixed  with 
the  reservations  which  truth  obliges  honest  travel  to 
own.  Now,  when  from  some  secret  spot  there  rose  the 
wild  cry  of  a  sentinel,  and  prolonged  itself  to  another 
who  caught  it  dying  up  and  breathed  new  life  into  it 
and  sent  it  echoing  on  till  it  had  made  the  round  of 
the  whole  fairy  city,  the  heart  shut  with  a  pang  of  pure 

ecstasy.     One  could  bear  no  more;  we  stepped  within, 

273 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

and  closed  the  window  behind  us.  That  is,  we  tried 
to  close  it,  but  it  would  not  latch,  and  we  were  obliged 
to  ring  for  a  camerero  to  come  and  see  what  ailed  it. 

The  infirmity  of  the  door-latch  was  emblematic  of  a 
temperamental  infirmity  in  the  whole  hotel.  The  prom 
ises  were  those  of  Madrid,  but  the  performances  were 
those  of  Segovia.  There  was  a  glitter,  almost  a  glare, 
of  Bitz-like  splendor,  and  the  rates  were  Ritz-like,  but 
there  the  resemblance  ceased.  The  porter  followed  us 
to  our  rooms  on  our  arrival  and  told  us  in  excellent 
English  (which  excelled  less  and  less  throughout  our 
stay)  that  he  was  the  hall  porter  and  that  we  could 
confidently  refer  all  our  wants  to  him ;  but  their  refer 
ence  seemed  always  to  close  the  incident.  There  was 
a  secretary  who  assured  us  that  our  rooms  were  not 
dear,  and  who  could  not  out  of  regard  to  our  honor  and 
comfort  consider  cheaper  ones;  and  then  ceased  to  be 
until  he  receipted  our  bill  when  we  went  away.  THere 
was  a  splendid  dining-room  with  waiters  of  such  beauty 
and  dignity,  and  so  purple  from  clean  shaving,  that  we 
scarcely  dared  face  them,  and  there  were  luncheons 
and  dinners  of  rich  and  delicate  superabundance  in  the 
menu,  but  of  an  exquisite  insipidity  on  the  .palate,  and 
of  a  swiftly  vanishing  Barmecide  insubstantiality,  as 
if  they  were  banquets  from  the  Arabian  Nights  im 
agined  under  the  rule  of  the  Moors.  Everywhere  shone 
silver-bright  radiators,  such  as  we  had  not  seen  since  we 
left  their  like  freezing  in  Burgos;  but  though  the 
weather  presently  changed  from  an  Andalusian  softness 
to  a  Castilian  severity  after  a  snowfall  in  the  Sierra, 
the  radiators  remained  insensible  to  the  difference  and 
the  air  nipped  the  nose  and  fingers  wherever  one  went 
in  the  hotel.  The  hall  porter,  who  knew  everything, 
said  the  boilers  were  out  of  order,  and  a  traveler  who 

had  been  there  the  winter  before  confirmed  him  with 

274 


THE    GATE    OF   JUSTICE.      PRINCIPAL   ENTRANCE    TO   THE    ALHAMBRA 


TO    AND    IN    GRANADA 

the  testimony  that  they  were  out  of  order  even  in  Janu 
ary.  There  may  not  have  been  any  fire  under  them 
then,  as  there  was  none  now ;  but  if  they  needed  repair 
ing  now  it  was  clearly  because  they  needed  repairing 
then.  In  the  corner  of  one  of  our  rooms  the  frescoed 
plastering  had  scaled  off,  and  we  knew  that  if  we  came 
back  a  year  later  the  same  spot  would  offer  us  a  familiar 
welcome. 

But  why  do  I  gird  at  that  hotel  in  Granada  as  if  I 
knew  of  no  faults  in  American  hotels  ?  I  know  of  many 
and  like  faults,  and  I  do  not  know  of  a  single  hotel 
of  ours  with  such  a  glorious  outlook  and  downlook  as 
that  hotel  in  Granada.  The  details  which  the  sunlight 
of  the  morrow  revealed  to  us  when  we  had  mastered  the 
mystery  of  our  window-catch  and  stood  again  on  our 
balcony  took  nothing  from  the  loveliness  of  the  moon 
light  picture,  but  rather  added  to  it,  and,  besides  a 
more  incredible  scene  of  mountain  and  plain  and  city, 
it  gave  us  one  particular  tree  in  a  garden  almost  under 
us  which  my  heart  clings  to  still  with  a  rapture  chang 
ing  to  a  fond  regret.  At  first  the  tree,  of  what  name  or 
nature  I  cannot  tell,  stood  full  and  perfect,  a  mass  of 
foliage  all  yellow  as  if  made  up  of  "  patines  of  bright 
gold."  Then  day  by  day,  almost  hour  by  hour,  it  dark 
ened  and  the  tree  shrank  as  if  huddling  its  leaves  closer 
about  it  in  the  cold  that  fell  from  the  ever-snowier 
Sierra.  On  the  last  morning  we  left  its  boughs  shak 
ing  in  the  rain 

against  the  cold, 
Bare,  ruined  choir  where  late  the  sweet  birds  sang. 


IV 

But  we  anticipate,  as  I  should  say  if  I  were  still  a 
romantic  novelist.    Many  other  trees  in  and  about  Gra- 

"  275 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

nada  were  yellower  than  that  one,  and  the  air  hung 
dim  with  a  thin  haze  as  of  Indian  summer  when  we 
left  our  hotel  in  eager  haste  to  see  the  Alhambra  such 
as  travelers  use  when  they  do  not  want  some  wonder 
of  the  world  to  escape  them.  Of  course  there  was  really 
no  need  of  haste,  and  we  had  to  wait  till  our  guide 
could  borrow  a  match  to  light  the  first  of  the  cigarettes 
which  he  never  ceased  to  smoke.  He  was  commended 
to  us  by  the  hall  porter,  who  said  he  could  speak  French, 
and  so  he  could,  to  the  extreme  of  constantly  saying, 
with  a  wave  of  his  cigarette,  ff  N'est  ce  pas?"  For  the 
rest  he  helped  himself  out  willingly  with  my  small 
Spanish.  At  the  end  he  would  have  delivered  us  over 
to  a  dealer  in  antiquities  hard  by  the  gate  of  the  palace 
if  I  had  not  prevented  him,  as  it  were,  by  main  force ; 
he  did  not  repine,  but  we  were  not  sorry  that  he  should 
be  engaged  for  the  next  day. 

Our  way  to  the  gate,  which  was  the  famous  Gate  of 
Justice  and  was  lovely  enough  to  be  the  Gate  of  Mercy, 
lay  through  the  beautiful  woods,  mostly  elms,  planted 
there  by  the  English  early  in  the  last  century.  The 
birds  sang  in  their  tops,  and  the  waters  warbled  at  their 
feet,  and  it  was  somewhat  thrillingly  cold  in  their  dense 
shade,  so  that  we  were  glad  to  get  out  of  it,  and  into  the 
sunshine  where  the  old  Moorish  palace  lay  basking  and 
dreaming.  At  once  let  me  confide  to  the  impatient 
reader  that  the  whole  Alhambra,  by  which  he  must 
understand  a  citadel,  and  almost  a  city,  since  it  could, 
if  it  never  did,  hold  twenty  thousand  people  within  its 
walls,  is  only  historically  and  not  artistically  more 
Moorish  than  the  Alcazar  at  Seville.  Far  nobler  and 
more  beautiful  than  its  Arabic  decorativeness  in  tinted 
stucco  is  the  palace  begun  by  Charles  V.,  after  a  de 
sign  in  the  spirit  of  the  supreme  hour  of  the  Italian 

Renaissance.     It  is  not  a  ruin  in  its  long  arrest,  and 

276 


TO    AND    IN    GKANADA 

one  hears  with  hopeful  sympathy  that  the  Spanish  king 
means  some  day  to  complete  it.  To  be  sure,  the  world 
is,  perhaps,  already  full  enough  of  royal  palaces,  but 
since  they  return  sooner  or  later  to  the  people  whose 
pockets  they  come  out  of,  one  must  be  willing  to  have 
this  palace  completed  as  the  architect  imagined  it. 

We  were  followed  into  the  Moorish  palace  by  the 
music  of  three  blind  minstrels  who  began  to  tune  their 
guitars  as  soon  as  they  felt  us:  see  us  they  could  not. 
Then  presently  we  were  in  the  famous  Court  of  the 
Lions,  where  a  group  of  those  beasts,  at  once  archaic 
and  puerile  in  conception,  sustained  the  basin  of  a 
fountain  in  the  midst  of  a  graveled  court  arabesqued 
and  honeycombed  round  with  the  wonted  ornamentation 
of  the  Moors. 

The  place  was  disappointing  to  the  boy  in  me  who 
had  once  passed  so  much  of  his  leisure  there,  and 
had  made  it  all  marble  and  gold.  The  floor  is  not 
only  gravel,  and  the  lions  are  not  only  more  like  sheep, 
but  the  environing  architecture  and  decoration  are  of 
a  faded  prettiness  which  cannot  bear  comparison  with 
the  fresh  rougeing,  equally  Moorish,  of  the  Alcazar  at 
Seville.  Was  this  indeed  the  place  where  the  Abencer- 
rages  were  brought  in  from  supper  one  by  one  and  be 
headed  into  the  fountain  at  the  behest  of  their  royal 
host  ?  Was  it  here  that  the  haughty  Don  Juan  de  Vera, 
coming  to  demand  for  the  Catholic  kings  the  arrears  of 
tribute  due  them  from  the  Moor,  "  paused  to  regard  its 
celebrated  fountain  "  and  "  fell  into  discourse  with  the 
Moorish  courtiers  on  certain  mysteries  of  the  Christian 
faith"?  So  Washington  Irving  says,  and  so  I  once 
believed,  with  glowing  heart  and  throbbing  brow  as  I 
read  how  "  this  most  Christian  knight  and  discreet 
ambassador  restrained  himself  within  the  limits  of  lofty 
gravity,  leaning  on  the  pommel  of  his  sword  and  look- 

277 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

ing  down  with  ineffable  scorn  upon  the  weak  casuists 
around  him.  The  quick  and  subtle  Arabian  witlings 
redoubled  their  light  attacks  on  the  stately  Spaniard, 
but  when  one  of  them,  of  the  race  of  the  Abencerrages 
dared  to  question,  with  a  sneer,  the  immaculate  con 
ception  of  the  blessed  Virgin,  the  Catholic  knight  could 
no  longer  restrain  his  ire.  Elevating  his  voice  of  a  sud 
den,  he  told  the  infidel  he  lied,  and  raising  his  arm 
at  the  same  time  he  smote  him  on  the  head  with  his 
sheathed  sword.  In  an  instant  the  Court  of  Lions  glis 
tened  with  the  flash  of  arms,"  insomuch  that  the  Ameri 
can  lady  whom  we  saw  writing  a  letter  beside  a  friend 
sketching  there  must  have  been  startled  from  her  open 
ing  words,  "  I  am  sitting  here  with  my  portfolio  on 
my  knees  in  the  beautiful  Court  of  the  Lions,"  and  if 
Muley  Aben  Hassan  had  not  "  overheard  the  tumult 
and  forbade  all  appeal  to  force,  pronouncing  the  per 
son  of  the  ambassador  sacred/'  she  never  could  have 
gone  on. 


I  did  not  doubt  the  fact  when  I  read  of  it  under  the 
level  boughs  of  the  beech  en  tree  with  J.  W.,  sixty  years 
ago,  by  the  green  woodland  light  of  the  primeval  forest 
which  hemmed  our  village  in,  and  since  I  am  well  away 
from  the  Alhambra  again  I  do  not  doubt  it  now.  I 
doubt  nothing  that  Irving  says  of  the  Alhambra ;  he  is 
the  gentle  genius  of  the  place,  and  I  could  almost  wish 
that  I  had  paid  the  ten  pesetas  extra  which  the  cus 
todian  demanded  for  showing  his  apartment  in  the  pal 
ace.  On  the  ground  the  demand  of  two  dollars  seemed 
a  gross  extortion;  yet  it  was  not  too  much  for  a  de 
votion  so  rich  as  mine  to  have  paid,  and  I  advise  other 
travelers  to  buy  themselves  off  from  a  vain  regret  by 

278 


Copyright  by  H.  C.  White  Co. 


THE    COURT   OF   THE    LIONS 


TO    AND    IN    GRANADA 

giving  it.  If  ever  a  memory  merited  the  right  to  levy 
tribute  011  all  comers  to  the  place  it  haunts,  Washington 
Irving' s  is  that  memory.  His  Conquest  of  Granada  is 
still  the  history  which  one  would  wish  to  read ;  his  Tales 
of  the  Alharnbra  embody  fable  and  fact  in  just  the 
right  measure  for  the  heart's  desire  in  the  presence  of 
the  monuments  they  verify  or  falsify.  They  belong  to 
that  strange  age  of  romance  which  is  now  so  almost 
pathetic  and  to  which  one  cannot  refuse  his  sympathy 
without  sensible  loss.  But  for  the  eager  make-believe 
of  that  time  we  should  still  have  to  hoard  up  much 
rubbish  which  we  can  now  leave  aside,  or  accept  without 
bothering  to  assay  for  the  few  grains  of  gold  in  it. 
Washington  Irving  had  just  the  playful  kindness  which 
sufficed  best  to  deal  with  the  accumulations  of  his  age ; 
if  he  does  not  forbid  you  to  believe,  he  does  not  oblige 
you  to  disbelieve,  and  he  has  always  a  tolerant  civility 
in  his  humor  which  comports  best  with  the  duty  of  tak 
ing  leniently  a  history  impossible  to  take  altogether 
seriously.  Till  the  Spaniards  had  put  an  end  to  the 
Moorish  misrule,  with  its  ruthless  despotism  and  bloody 
civil  brawls,  the  Moors  deserved  to  be  conquered;  it 
was  not  till  their  power  was  broken  forever  that  they 
became  truly  heroic  in  their  vain  struggles  and  their 
unavailing  sorrows.  Then  their  pathetic  resignation 
to  persecution  and  exile  lent  dignity  even  to  their  ridicu 
lous  religion;  but  it  was  of  the  first  and  not  the  second 
period  that  Irving  had  to  treat. 


VI 


The  Alhambra  is  not  so  impressive  by  its  glory  or 
grandeur  as  by  the  unparalleled  beauty  of  its  place. 

If  it  is  not  very  noble  as  an  effect  of  art,  the  inspira- 

279 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

tion  of  its  founders  is  affirmed  by  their  choice  of  an  out 
look  which  commands  one  of  the  most  magnificent  pano 
ramas  in  the  whole  world.  It  would  be  useless  to  re 
hearse  the  proofs  by  name.  Think  of  far-off  silver- 
crested  summits  and  of  a  peopled  plain  stretching  away 
from  them  out  of  eye-shot,  dense  first  with  roofs  and 
domes  and  towers,  and  then  freeing  itself  within  fields 
and  vineyards  and  orchards  and  forests  to  the  vanish 
ing-point  of  the  perspective;  think  of  steep  and  sud 
den  plunges  into  chasms  at  the  foot  of  the  palace  walls, 
and  one  crooked  stream  stealing  snakelike  in  their 
depths;  think  of  whatever  splendid  impossible  dramas 
of  topography  that  you  will,  of  a  tremendous  map  out 
stretched  in  colored  relief,  and  you  will  perhaps  have 
some  notion  of  the  prospect  from  the  giddy  windows 
of  the  Alhambra;  and  perhaps  not.  Of  one  thing  we 
made  memorably  sure  beyond  the  gulf  of  the  Darro, 
and  that  was  the  famous  gipsy  quarter  which  the 
traveler  visits  at  the  risk  of  his  life  in  order  to  have 
his  fortune  told.  At  the  same  moment  we  made  sure 
that  we  should  not  go  nearer  it,  for  though  we  knew 
that  it  was  insurpassably  dirty  as  well  as  dangerous, 
we  remembered  so  distinctly  the  loathsomeness  of  the 
gipsy  quarter  at  Seville  that  we  felt  no  desire  to  put 
it  to  the  comparison. 

We  preferred  rather  the  bird's-eye  study  of  the  beau 
tiful  G^eneralife  which  our  outlook  enabled  us  to  make, 
and  which  we  supplemented  by  a  visit  the  next  day. 
We  preferred,  after  the  Barmecide  lunch  at  our  hotel, 
taking  the  tram-car  that  noisily  and  more  noisily 
clambers  up  and  down,  and  descending  into  the  town 
by  it.  The  ascent  is  so  steep  that  at  a  certain  point 
the  electric  current  no  longer  suffices,  and  the  car  bites 
into  the  line  of  cogs  with  its  sort  of  powerful  under- 
jaw  and  so  arrives.  Yet  it  is  a  kindly  little  vehicle, 

280 


TO    AND    IN    GRANADA 

with  a  conductor  so  affectionately  careful  in  transport 
ing  the  stranger  that  I  felt  after  a  single  day  we  should 
soon  become  brothers,  or  at  least  step-brothers.  When 
ever  we  left  or  took  his  car,  after  the  beginning  or  end 
ing  of  the  cogway,  he  was  alert  to  see  that  we  made 
the  right  change  to  or  from  it,  and  that  we  no  more 
overpaid  than  underpaid  him.  Such  homely  natures 
console  the  traveler  for  the  thousand  inhospitalities  of 
travel,  and  bind  races  and  religions  together  in  spite  of 
patriotism  and  piety. 

We  were  going  first  to  the  Cartuja,  and  in  the  city, 
which  we  found  curiously  much  more  modern,  after 
the  Latin  notion,  than  Seville,  with  freshly  built  apart 
ment-houses  and  business  blocks,  we  took  a  cab,  not  so 
modern  as  to  be  a  taxicab,  and  drove  through  the  quarter 
said  to  have  been  assigned  to  the  Moors  after  the  fall 
of  Granada.  The  dust  lay  thick  in  the  roadway  where 
filthy  children  played,  but  in  the  sunny  doorways  good 
mothers  of  families  crouched  taking  away  the  popular 
reproach  of  vermin  by  searching  one  another's  heads. 
Men  bestriding  their  donkeys  rode  fearlessly  through 
the  dust,  and  one  cleanly-looking  old  peasant  woman, 
who  sat  hers  plumply  cushioned  and  framed  in  with 
a  chair-back  and  arms,  showed  a  patience  with  the 
young  trees  planted  for  future  shade  along  the  desperate 
avenue  which  I  could  wish  we  had  emulated.  When 
we  reached  the  entrance  of  the  old  Carthusian  Convent, 
long  since  suppressed  and  its  brothers  exiled,  a  strong 
force  of  beggarmen  waited  for  us,  but  a  modest  beggar- 
woman,  old  and  sad,  had  withdrawn  to  the  church  door, 
where  she  shared  in  our  impartial  alms.  We  were 
admitted  to  the  cloister,  rather  oddly,  by  a  young  girl, 
who  went  for  one  of  the  remaining  monks  to  show  us 
the  church.  He  came  with  a  newspaper  (I  hope  of 

clerical  politics)  in  his  hand,  and  distracted  himself 

281 


IAE    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

long  enough  to  draw  a  curtain,  or  turn  on 
point  out  a  picture  or  statue  from  time 
it  he  was  visibly  anxious  to  get  back  to  it, 
more  eagerly  than  he  welcomed  us  in  a 
/ch  upon  the  whole  is  richer  in  its  peculiar 
)f  painting,  sculpture,  especially  in  wood, 
costly  marble,  and  precious  stones  than  any  other  I  re 
member.  According  to  my  custom,  I  leave  it  to  the 
guide-books  to  name  these,  and  to  the  abounding-  critics 
of  Spanish  art  to  celebrate  the  pictures  and  statues; 
it  is  enough  for  me  that  I  have  now  forgotten  them 
all  except  those  scenes  of  the  martyrdom  inflicted  by 
certain  Protestants  on  members  of  the  Carthusian 
brotherhood  at  the  time  when  all  sorts  of  Christians  felt 
bound  to  correct  the  opinions  of  all  other  sorts  by  the 
cruelest  tortures  they  could  invent.  When  the  monk 
had  put  us  to  shame  by  the  sight  of  these  paintings 
(bad  as  their  subjects),  he  put  us  out,  letting  his  eyes 
fall  back  upon  his  newspaper  before  the  door  had  well 
closed  upon  us. 

The  beggarmen  had  waited  in  their  places  to  give 
us  another  chance  of  meriting  heaven ;  and  at  the  church 
door  still  crouched  the  old  beggarwoman.  I  saw  now 
that  the  imploring  eyes  she  lifted  were  sightless,  and  I 
could  not  forbear  another  alms,  and  as  I  put  my  copper 
big-dog  in  her  leathern  palm  I  said,  "  Adios,  madre" 
Then  happened  something  that  I  had  long  desired.  I 
had  heard  and  read  that  in  Spain  people  always  said 
at  parting,  "  Go  with  God,"  but  up  to  that  moment 
nobody  had  said  it  to  me,  though  I  had  lingeringly 
given  many  the  opportunity.  Now,  at  my  words  and 
at  the  touch  of  my  coin  this  old  beggarwoman  smiled 
beneficently  and  said,  "  Go  with  God,"  or,  as  she  put 
it  in  her  Spanish, f(  Vaya  listed  con  Dios."  Immediate 
ly  I  ought  to  have  pressed  another  coin  in  her  palm, 

282 


TO    AND    IN    GRANADA 

with  a  <f  Gracias,  madre ;  muclias  gracias"  out  of  re 
gard  to  the  literary  climax;  but  whether  I  really  did 
so  I  cannot  now  remember ;  I  can  only  hope  I  did. 


VII 

I  think  that  it  was  while  I  was  still  in  this  high 
satisfaction  that  we  went  a  drive  in  the  promenade, 
which  in  all  Spanish  cities  is  the  Alameda,  except 
Seville,  where  it  so  deservedly  is  the  Delicias.  It  was 
in  every  way  a  contrast  to  the  road  we  had  come  from 
the  Cartuja:  an  avenue  of  gardened  paths  and  em 
bowered  driveways,  where  we  hoped  to  join  the  rank 
and  fashion  of  Granada  in  their  afternoon's  outing. 
But  there  was  only  one  carriage  besides  our  own  with 
people  in  it,  who  looked  no  greater  world  than  our 
selves,  and  a  little  girl  riding  with  her  groom.  On 
one  hand  were  pretty  villas,  new-looking  and  neat, 
which  I  heard  could  sometimes  be  taken  for  the  sum 
mer  at  rents  so  low  that  I  am  glad  I.  have  forgotten 
the  exact  figures  lest  the  reader  should  doubt  my  word. 
Nothing  but  the  fact  that  the  winter  was  then  hanging 
over  us  from  the  Sierras  prevented  my  taking  one  of 
them  for  the  summer  that  had  passed,  the  Granadan 
summer  being  notoriously  the  most  delightful  in  the 
world.  On  the  other  hand  stretched  the  wonderful 
Vega,  which  covers  so  many  acres  in  history  and  ro 
mance,  and  there,  so  near  that  we  look  down  into  them 
at  times  were  "  the  silvery  windings  of  the  Xenil," 
which  glides  through  so  many  descriptive  passages  of 
Irving' s  page ;  only  now,  on  account  of  recent  rain,  its 
windings  were  rather  coppery. 

At  the  hotel  on  the  terrace  under  our  balcony  we 

found  on  our  return  a  party  of  Spanish  ladies  and 
19  283 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

gentlemen  taking  tea,  or  whatever  drink  stood  for  it 
in  their  custom:  no  doubt  chocolate;  but  it  was  at 
least  the  afternoon-tea  hour.  The  women's  clothes  were 
just  from  Paris,  and  the  men's  from  London,  but  their 
customs,  I  suppose,  were  national ;  the  women  sat  on 
one  side  of  the  table  and  talked  across  it  to  the  men, 
while  they  ate  and  drank,  and  then  each  sex  grouped 
itself  apart  and  talked  to  its  kind,  the  women  in  those 
hardened  vowels  of  a  dialect  from  which  the  Anda- 
lusians  for  conversational  purposes  have  eliminated  all 
consonants.  The  sun  was  setting  red  and  rayless,  with 
a  play  of  many  lights  and  tints,  over  the  landscape  up 
to  the  snow-line  on  the  Sierra.  The  town  lay  a  stretch 
of  gray  roofs  and  white  walls,  intermixed  with  yellow 
poplars  and  black  cypresses,  and  misted  over  with  smoke 
from  the  chimneys  of  the  sugar  factories.  The  moun 
tains  stood  flat  against  the  sky,  purple  with  wide 
stretches  of  brown,  and  dark,  slanting  furrows.  The 
light  became  lemon-yellow  before  nightfall,  and  then  a 
dull  crimson  under  pale  violet. 

The  twitter  of  the  Spanish  women  was  overborne  at 
times  by  the  voices  of  an  American  party  whose  pres 
ence  I  was  rather  proud  of  as  another  American.  They 
were  all  young  men,  and  they  were  making  an  educa 
tional  tour  of  the  world  in  the  charge  of  a  professor 
who  saw  to  it  that  they  learned  as  much  of  its  languages 
and  history  and  civilization  as  possible  on  the  way. 
They  ranged  in  their  years  from  about  fifteen  to  twenty 
and  even  more,  and  they  were  preparing  for  college, 
or  doing  what  they  could  to  repair  the  loss  of  university 
training  before  they  took  up  the  work  of  life.  It  seemed 
to  me  a  charming  notion,  and  charming  the  seriousness 
with  which  they  were  fulfilling  it.  They  were  not  so 
serious  in  everything  as  to  miss  any  incidental  pleas 
ure  ;  they  had  a  large  table  to  themselves  in  our  Barme- 

284 


TO    AND    IN    GRANADA 

cide  banquet-hall,  where  they  seemed  always  to  be  hav 
ing  a  good  time,  and  where  once  they  celebrated  the 
birthday  of  one  of  them  with  a  gaiety  which  would 
have  penetrated,  if  anything  could,  the  shining  chill  of 
the  hostelry.  In  the  evening  we  heard  them  in  the 
billiard-room  below  lifting  their  voices  in  the  lays  of 
our  college  muse,  and  waking  to  ecstasy  the  living  piano 
in  the  strains  of  our  national  ragtime.  They  were 
never  intrusively  cheerful;  one  might  remain,  in  spite 
of  them,  as  dispirited  as  the  place  would  have  one ;  but 
as  far  as  the  genius  loci  would  let  me,  I  liked  them ;  and 
so  far  as  I  made  their  acquaintance  I  thought  that  they 
were  very  intelligently  carrying  out  the  enterprise  im 
agined  for  them. 

VIII 

I  wish  now  that  I  had  known  them  well  enough  to 
ask  them  what  they  candidly  thought  of  the  city  of 
which  I  felt  the  witchery  under  the  dying  day  I  have 
left  celebrating  for  the  moment  in  order  to  speak  of 
them.  It  seems  to  me  at  this  distance  of  time  and 
space  that  I  did  not  duly  reflect  that  in  places  it  was  a 
city  which  smelled  very  badly  and  was  almost  as  dirty 
as  New  York  in  others,  and  very  ill  paved.  The  worst 
places  are  in  the  older  quarters,  where  the  streets  are 
very  crooked  and  very  narrow,  so  narrow  that  the  tram- 
car  can  barely  scrape  through  them.  They  are  old 
enough  to  be  streets  belonging  to  the  Moorish  city,  like 
many  streets  in  Cordova  and  Seville,  but  no  fond  in 
quiry  of  our  guides  could  identify  this  lane  or  that 
alley  as  of  Moorish  origin.  There  is  indeed  a  group  of 
picturesque  shops  clearly  faked  to  look  Moorish,  which 
the  lover  of  that  period  may  pin  his  faith  to,  and  for  a 
moment  I  did  so,  but  upon  second  thought  I  un 
pinned  it. 

285 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

We  visited  this  plated  fragment  of  the  old  Moorish 
capital  when  we  descended  from  our  hotel  with  a  new 
guide  to  see  the  great,  the  stupendous  cathedral,  where 
the  Catholic  kings  lie  triumphantly  entombed  in  the 
heart  of  their  conquest.  It  is  altogether  unlike  the 
other  Spanish  cathedrals  of  my  knowledge ;  for  though 
the  cathedral  of  Valladolid  is  of  Renaissance  archi 
tecture  in  its  austere  simplicity,  it  is  somehow  even  less 
like  that  of  Granada  than  the  Gothic  fanes  of  Burgos 
or  Toledo  or  Seville.  All  the  detail  at  Granada  is 
classicistic,  but  the  whole  is  often  of  Gothic  effect,  es 
pecially  in  the  mass  of  those  clustered  Corinthian 
columns  that  lift  its  domes  aloof  on  their  prodigious 
bulk,  huge  as  that  of  the  grouped  pillars  in  the  York 
Minster.  The  white  of  the  marble  walls,  the  gold  of 
altars,  the  colors  of  painted  wooden  sculpture  form  the 
tones  of  the  place,  subdued  to  one  bizarre  richness  which 
I  may  as  well  leave  first  as  last  to  the  reader's  fancy; 
though,  let  his  fancy  riot  as  it  will,  it  never  can  picture 
that  gorgeousness.  Mass  was  saying  at  a  side  altar  as 
we  entered,  and  the  music  of  stringed  instruments  and 
the  shrill  voices  of  choir-boys  pierced  the  spaces  here 
and  there,  but  no  more  filled  them  than  the  immemo- 
rable  plastic  and  pictorial  facts:  than  a  certain  very 
lively  bishop  kneeling  on  his  tomb  and  looking  like 
George  Washington ;  or  than  a  St.  Jerome  in  the  Desert, 
outwrinkling  age,  with  his  lion  curled  cozily  up  in  his 
mantle;  or  than  the  colossal  busts  of  Adam  and  Eve 
and  the  praying  figures  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabel,  rich 
ly  gilded  in  the  exquisite  temple  forming  the  high  altar ; 
or  than  the  St.  James  on  horseback,  with  his  horse's 
hoof  planted  on  the  throat  of  a  Moor;  or  than  the 
Blessed  Virgins  in  jeweled  crowns  and  stomachers  and 
brocaded  skirts ;  or  than  that  unsparing  decapitation  of 

John  the  Baptist  bloodily  falling  forward   with  his 

286 


TO    AND    IN    GEANADA 

severed  gullet  thrusting  at  the  spectator.  Nothing  has 
ever  been  too  terrible  in  life  for  Spanish  art  to  repre 
sent  ;  it  is  as  ruthlessly  veracious  as  Russian  literature ; 
and  of  all  the  painters  and  sculptors  who  have  portrayed 
the  story  of  Christianity  as  a  tale  of  torture  and  slaugh 
ter,  the  Spaniards  seem  to  have  studied  it  closest  from 
the  fact;  perhaps  because  for  centuries  the  Inquisition 
lavished  the  fact  upon  them. 

The  supreme  interest  of  the  cathedral  is,  of  course, 
the  Royal  Chapel,  where  in  a  sunken  level  Ferdinand 
and  Isabel  lie,  with  their  poor  mad  daughter  Joan  and 
her  idolized  unfaithful  husband  Philip  the  Fair,  whose 
body  she  bore  about  with  her  while  she  lived.  The 
picture  postal  has  these  monuments  in  its  keeping  and 
can  show  them  better  than  my  pen,  which  falters  also 
from  the  tremendous  retablo  of  the  chapel  dense  with 
the  agonies  of  martyrdom  and  serene  with  the  piety  of 
the  Catholic  Kings  kneeling  placidly  amid  the  horrors. 
If  the  picture  postal  will  not  supply  these,  or  reproduce 
the  many  and  many  relics  and  memorials  which  abound 
there  and  in  the  sacristy — jewels  and  vestments  and 
banners  and  draperies  of  the  royal  camp-altar — there 
is  nothing  for  the  reader  but  to  go  himself  and  see.  It 
is  richly  worth  his  while,  and  if  he  cannot  believe  in  a 
box  which  will  be  shown  him  as  the  box  Isabel  gave 
Columbus  her  jewels  in  merely  because  he  has  been 
shown  a  reliquary  as  her  hand-glass,  so  much  the  worse 
for  him.  He  will  not  then  merit  the  company  of  a 
small  choir-boy  who  efficiently  opens  the  iron  gate  to 
the  crypt  and  gives  the  custodian  as  good  as  he  sends 
in  back-talk  and  defiantly  pockets  the  coppers  he  has 
earned.  Much  less  will  he  deserve  to  witness  the  home 
ly  scene  in  an  area  outside  of  the  Royal  Chapel,  where 
many  milch  goats  are  assembled,  and  when  a  customer 
comes,  preferably  a  little  srirl  with  a  tin  cup,  one  of  the 

287 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

mothers  of  the  flock  is  pinioned  much  against  her  will 
by  a  street  boy  volunteering  for  the  office,  and  her  head 
held  tight  while  the  goatherdess  milks  the  measure  full 
at  the  other  end. 


IX 


Everywhere  about  the  cathedral  beggars  lay  in  wait, 
and  the  neighboring  streets  were  lively  with  bargains 
of  prickly  pears  spread  open  on  the  ground  by  old 
women  who  did  not  care  whether  any  one  bought  or 
not.  There  were  also  bargains  in  palmistry;  and  at 
one  place  a  delightful  humorist  was  selling  clothing  at 
auction.  He  allured  the  bidders  by  having  his  left 
hand  dressed  as  a  puppet  and  holding  a  sparkling  dia 
logue  with  it;  when  it  did  not  respond  to  his  liking  he 
beat  it  with  his  right  hand,  and  every  now  and  then  he 
rang  a  little  bell.  He  had  a  pleased  crowd  about  him 
in  the  sunny  square;  but  it  seemed  to  me  that  all  the 
newer  part  of  Granada  was  lively  with  commerce  in 
ample,  tram-trodden  streets  which  gave  the  shops,  larger 
than  any  we  had  seen  out  of  Madrid,  a  chance  uncom 
mon  in  the  narrow  ways  of  other  Spanish  cities.  Yet 
when  I  went  to  get  money  on  my  letter  of  credit,  I 
found  the  bank  withdrawn  from  the  modernity  in  a 
seclusion  reached  through  a  lovely  patio.  We  were 
seated  in  old-fashioned  welcome,  such  as  used  to  honor 
a  banker's  customers  in  Venice,  and  all  comers  bowed 
and  bade  us  good  day.  The  bankers  had  no  such  ques 
tion  of  the  different  signatures  as  vexed  those  of  Val- 
ladolid,  and  after  no  more  delay  than  due  ceremony 
demanded,  I  went  away  with  both  my  money  and  my 
letter,  courteously  seen  to  the  door. 

The  guide,  to  whom  we  had  fallen  in  the  absence  of 
our  French-speaking  guide  of  the  day  before,  spoke  a  lit- 

288 


TO    AND    IN    GKANADA 

tie  English,  and  he  seemed  to  grow  in  sympathetic  in 
telligence  as  the  morning  passed.  He  made  our  sight 
seeing  include  visits  to  the  church  of  St.  John  of  God, 
and  the  church  of  San  Geronimo,  which  was  built  by 
Gonsalvo  de  Cordova,  the  Great  Captain,  and  remains 
now  a  memorial  to  him.  We  rang  at  the  door,  and 
after  long  delay  a  woman  came  and  let  us  into  an  in 
terior  stranger  ever  than  her  being  there  as  custodian. 
It  was  frescoed  from  floor  to  ceiling  everywhere,  except 
the  places  of  the  altars  now  kept  by  the  painted  retablos 
and  the  tombs  and  the  statues  of  the  various  saints  and 
heroes.  The  retablo  of  the  high  altar  is  almost  more 
beautiful  than  wonderful,  but  the  chief  glory  of  the 
place  is  in  the  kneeling  figures  of  the  Great  Captain 
and  his  wife,  one  on  either  side  of  the  altar,  and  farther 
away  the  effigies  of  his  famous  companions-in-arms,  and 
on  the  walls  above  their  heraldic  blazons  and  his.  The 
church  Was  unfinished  when  the  Great  Captain  died  in 
the  displeasure  of  his  ungrateful  king,  and  its  sump 
tuous  completion  testifies  to  the  devotion  of  his 
wife  and  her  taste  in  choosing  the  best  artists  for  the 
work. 

I  have  still  the  sense  of  a  noonday  quiet  that  lingered 
with  us  after  we  left  this  church  and  which  seemed  to 
go  with  us  to  the  Hospital  of  St.  John  of  God,  founded, 
with  other  hospitals,  by  the  pious  Portuguese,  who, 
after  a  life  of  good  works,  took  this  name  on  his  well- 
merited  canonization.  The  hospital  is  the  monument  of 
his  devotion  to  good  works,  and  is  full  of  every  manner 
of  religious  curio.  I  cannot  remember  to  have  seen  so 
many  relics  under  one  roof,  bones  of  both  holy  men  and 
women,  with  idols  of  the  heathen  brought  from  Portu 
guese  possessions  in  the  East  which  are  now  faded  from 
the  map,  as  well  as  the  body  of  St.  John  of  God  shrined 

in  silver  in  the  midst  of  all. 

289 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 


I  do  not  know  why  I  should  have  brought  away  from 
these  two  places  a  peacef illness  of  mind  such  as  seldom 
follows  a  visit  to  show-places,  but  the  fact  is  so;  per 
haps  it  was  because  we  drove  to  and  from  them,  and 
were  not  so  tired  as  footworn  sight-seers  are,  or  so  re 
bellious.  One  who  had  seen  not  only  the  body  of  St. 
John  of  God>  but  his  cane  with  a  whistle  in  it  to  warn 
the  charitable  of  his  coming  and  attune  their  minds 
to  alms-giving,  and  the  straw  basket  in  which  he  col 
lected  food  for  the  poor,  now  preserved  under  an  em 
broidered  satin  covering,  and  an  autograph  letter  of  his 
framed  in  glass  and  silver,  might  even  have  been  re 
freshed  by  his  experience.  At  any  rate,  we  were  so  far 
from  tired  that  after  luncheon  we  walked  to  the  Garden 
of  the  Generalif e,  and  then  walked  all  over  it.  The 
afternoon  was  of  the  very  mood  for  such  a  visit,  and 
we  passed  it  there  in  these  walks  and  bowers,  and  the 
black  cypress  aisles,  and  the  trees  and  vines  yellow 
ing  to  the  fall  of  their  leaves.  The  melancholy  laugh 
of  water  chasing  down  the  steep  channels  and  gurgling 
through  the  stone  rails  of  stairways  was  everywhere, 
and  its  dim  smile  gleamed  from  pools  and  tanks.  In 
the  court  where  it  stretched  in  a  long  basin  an  English 
girl  was  painting  and  another  girl  was  sewing,  to  whom 
I  now  tardily  offer  my  thanks  for  adding  to  the  charm 
of  the  place.  Not  many  other  people  were  there  to 
dispute  our  afternoon's  ownership.  I  count  a  peasant 
family,  the  women  in  black  shawls  and  the  men  wear 
ing  wide,  black  sashes,  rather  as  our  guests  than  as 
strangers;  and  I  am  often  there  still  with  no  sense  of 
molestation.  Even  the  reader  who  does  not  conceive 
of  a  garden  being  less  flowers  and  shrubs  than  foun- 

290 


Copyright  by  H.  C.  White  Co. 

LOOKING  NORTHWEST  FROM  THE  GENERALIFE  OVER  GRANADA 


TO    AND    IN    GRANADA 

tains  and  pavilions  and  porches  and  borders  of  box  and 
walls  of  clipped  evergreens,  will  scarcely  follow  me  to 
the  Generalife  or  outstay  me  there. 

The  place  is  probably  dense  with  history  and  suf 
focating  with  association,  but  I  prefer  to  leave  all  that 
to  the  imagination  Where  my  own  ignorance  found  it. 
A  painter  had  told  me  once  of  his  spending  a  summer  in 
it,  and  he  showed  some  beautiful  pieces  of  color  in  proof, 
but  otherwise  I  came  to  it  with  a  blank  surface  on  which 
it  might  photograph  itself  without  blurring  any  earlier 
record.     This,  perhaps,  is  why  I  love  so  much  to  dwell 
there  on  that  never-ending  afternoon  of  late  October. 
It  was  long  past  the  hour  of  its  summer  bloom,  but  the 
autumnal  air  was  enriching  it  beyond  the  dreams  of 
avarice  with  the  gold  which  prevails  in  the  Spanish 
landscape  wherever  the  green  is  gone,  and  we  could 
look  out  of  its  yellowing  bowers  over  a  landscape  im 
measurable  in  beauty.     Of  course,  we  tried  to  master 
the  facts  of  the  General  if  e's  past,  but  we  really  did  not 
care  for  them  and  scarcely  believed  that  Charles  V. 
had  doubted  the  sincerity  of  the  converted  Moor  who 
had  it  from  Ferdinand  of  Aragon,  and  so  withheld  it 
from  his  heirs  for  four  generations  until  they  could 
ripen  to  a  genuine  Christianity  at  Genoa,  whither  they 
withdrew  and  became  the  patrician  family  now  its  pro 
prietors.     The  arms  of  this  family  decorate  the  roof 
and  walls  of  the  colonnaded  belvedere  from  which  you 
look  out  over  the  city  and  the  plain  and  the  mountains ; 
and  there  are  remnants  of  Moorish  decoration  in  many 
places,  but  otherwise  the  Generalife  is  now  as  Christian 
as    the    noble    Pallavicini    who    possess    it.       There 
were   plenty   of   flower-beds,   box-bordered,   but   there 
were  no  flowers  in  them;  the  flowers  preferred  stand 
ing  about  in  tall  pots.     There  was  an  arbor  overhung 
with  black  forgotten  grapes  before  the  keeper's  door 

291 


FAMILIAE    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

and   in  the  corner   of   it   dangled   ropes   of   fire  -  red 
peppers. 

This  detail  is  what,  with  written  help,  I  remember  of 
the  Generalife,  but  no  loveliness  of  it  shall  fade  from 
my  soul.  From  its  embowered  and  many-fountained 
height  it  looks  over  to  the  Alhambra,  dull  red,  and  the 
city  wall  climbing  the  opposite  slope  across  the  Darro 
to  a  church  on  the  hilltop  which  was  once  a  mosque. 
The  precipice  to  which  the  garden  clings  plunges  sheer 
to  the  river-bed  with  a  downlook  insurpassably  thrill 
ing;  but  the  best  view  of  the  city  is  from  the  flowery 
walk  that  runs  along  the  side  of  the  Alcazaba,  which 
was  once  a  fortress  and  is  now  a, garden,  long  forgetful 
of  its  office  of  defending  the  Alhambra  palace.  From 
this  terrace  Granada  looks  worthy  of  her  place  in  his 
tory  and  romance.  We  visited  the  Alcazaba  after  the 
Generalife,  and  were  very  critical,  but  I  must  own  the 
supremacy  of  this  prospect.  I  should  not  mind  owning 
its  supremacy  among  all  the  prospects  in  the  world. 


XI 


Meanwhile  our  shining  hotel  had  begun  to  thrill  with 
something  besides  the  cold  which  nightly  pierced  it  from 
the  snowy  Sierra.  This  was  the  excitement  pending 
from  an  event  promised  the  next  day,  which  was  the 
production  of  a  drama  in  verse,  of  peculiar  and  intense 
interest  for  Granada,  where  the  scene  of  it  was  laid 
in  the  Alhambra  at  one  of  the  highest  moments  of  its 
history,  and  the  persons  were  some  of  those  dearest  to 
its  romance.  Not  only  the  company  to  perform  it  (of 
course  the  first  company  in  Spain)  had  been  in  the 
hotel  overnight,  and  the  ladies  of  it  had  gleamed  and 

gloomed  through  the  cold  corridors,  but  the  poet  had 

292 


TO    AND    IN    GRANADA 

been  conspicuous  at  dinner,  with  his  wife,  young  and 
beautiful  and  blond,  and  powdered  so  white  that  her 
blondness  was  of  quite  a  violet  cast.  There  was  not  so 
much  a  question  of  whether  we  should  take  tickets  as 
whether  we  could  get  them,  but  for  this  the  powerful  in 
fluence  of  our  guide  availed,  and  he  got  tickets  provi 
dentially  given  up  in  the  morning  for  a  price  so  ex 
orbitant  I  should  be  ashamed  to  confess  it.  They  were 
for  the  afternoon  performance,  and  at  three  o'clock  we 
went  with  the  rest  of  the  gay  and  great  world  of  Gra 
nada  to  the  principal  theater. 

The  Latin  conception  of  a  theater  is  of  something 
rather  more  barnlike  than  ours,  but  this  theater  was  of 
a  sufficiently  handsome  presence,  and  when  we  had  been 
carried  into  it  by  the  physical  pressure  exerted  upon 
us  by  the  crowd  at  the  entrance  we  found  its  vastness 
already  thronged.  The  seats  in  the  orchestra  were 
mostly  taken ;  the  gallery  under  the  roof  was  loud  with 
the  impatience  for  the  play  which  the  auditors  there 
testified  by  cries  and  whistlings  and  stampings  until 
the  curtain  lifted ;  the  tiers  of  boxes  rising  all  round  the 
theater  were  filled  with  family  parties.  The  fathers  and 
mothers  sat  in  front  with  the  children  between  them  of 
all  ages  down  to  babies  in  their  nurses'  arms.  These 
made  themselves  perfectly  at  home,  in  one  case  reaching 
over  the  edge  of  the  box  and  clawing  the  hair  of  a  gentle 
man  standing  below  and  openly  enjoying  the  joke.  The 
friendly  equality  of  the  prevailing  spirit  was  expressed 
in  the  presence  of  the  family  servants  at  the  back  of 
the  family  boxes,  from  which  the  latest  fashions  showed 
themselves  here  and  there,  as  well  as  the  belated  local 
versions  of  them.  In  the  orchestra  the  men  had  prompt 
ly  lighted  their  cigars  and  the  air  was  blue  with  smoke. 
Friends  found  one  another,  to  their  joyful  amaze,  not 
having  met  since  morning;  and  especially  young  girls 

293 


FAMILTAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

were  enraptured  to  recognize  young  men ;  one  girl  shook 
hands  twice  with  a  young  man,  and  gurgled  with 
laughter  as  long  as  he  stood  near  her. 

As  a  lifelong  lover  of  the  drama  and  a  boyish  friend 
of  Granadan  romance,  I  ought  to  have  cared  more  for 
the  play  than  the  people  who  had  come  to  it,  but  I  did 
not.  The  play  was  unintentionally  amusing  enough; 
but  after  listening  for  two  hours  to  the  monotonous 
cadences  of  the  speeches  which  the  persons  of  it  recited 
to  one  another,  while  the  ladies  of  the  Moorish  world 
took  as  public  a  part  in  its  events  as  if  they  had  been 
so  many  American  Christians,  we  came  away.  We  had 
already  enjoyed  the  first  entr'acte,  when  the  men  all  rose 
and  went  out,  or  lighted  fresh  cigars  and  went  to  talk 
with  the  Paris  hats  and  plumes  or  the  Spanish  mantillas 
and  high  combs  in  the  boxes.  The  curtain  had  scarcely 
fallen  when  the  author  of  the  play  was  called  before  it 
and  applauded  by  the  generous,  the  madly  generous, 
spectators.  He  stood  bowing  and  bowing  on  tiptoe,  as 
if  the  wings  of  his  rapture  lifted  him  to  them  and  would 
presently  fly  away  with  him.  He  could  not  drink  deep 
enough  of  the  delicious  draught,  put  brimming  to  his 
lips,  and  the  divine  intoxication  must  have  lasted  him 
through  the  night,  for  after  breakfast  the  next  morn 
ing  I  met  him  in  our  common  corridor  at  the  hotel 
smiling  to  himself,  and  when  I  could  not  forbear  smil 
ing  in  return  he  smiled  more;  he  beamed,  he  glowed 
upon  me  as  if  I  were  a  crowded  house  still  cheering  him 
to  the  echo.  It  was  a  beautiful  moment  and  I  realized 
even  better  than  the  afternoon  before  what  it  was  to  be 
a  young  poet  and  a  young  Spanish  poet,  and  to  have 
had  a  first  play  given  for  the  first  time  in  the  city  of 
Granada,  where  the  morning  papers  glowed  with  praise 
so  ardent  that  the  print  all  but  smoked  with  it.  We 

were  alone  in  the  corridor  where  we  met,  and  our  eyes 

294 


TO    AND    IN    GKANADA 

confessed  us  kindred  spirits,  and  I  hope  he  understood 
me  better  than  if  I  had  taken  him  in  my  arms  and 
kissed  him  on  hoth  cheeks. 

I  really  had  no  time  for  that;  I  was  on  my  way 
down-stairs  to  witness  the  farewell  scene  between  the 
leading  lady  and  the  large  group  of  young  Granadans 
who  had  come  up  to  see  her  off.  When  she  came  out 
to  the  carriage  with  her  husband,  by  a  delicate  refine 
ment  of  homage  they  cheered  him,  and  left  him  to 
deliver  their  devotion  to  her,  which  she  acknowledged 
only  with  a  smile.  But  not  so  the  leading  lady's  lady's- 
maid,  when  her  turn  came  to  bid  good-by  from  our 
omnibus  window  to  the  assembled  upper  servants  of  the 
hotel.  She  put  her  head  out  and  said  in  a  voice  hoarse 
with  excitement  and  good-fellowship,  " 'Adios,  horribres!" 
.("Good-by,  men!"),  and  vanished  with  us  from  their 
applausive  presence. 

With  us,  I  say.  for  we,  too,  were  leaving  Granada 
in  rain  which  was  snow  on  the  Sierra  and  so  cold  that 
we  might  well  have  seemed  leaving  Greenland.  The 
brave  mules  which  had  so  gallantly,  under  the  lash  of 
the  running  foot-boy  beside  them,  galloped  uphill  with 
us  the  moonlight  night  of  our  coming,  now  felt  their 
anxious  way  down  in  the  dismal  drizzle  of  that  last 
morning,  and  brought  us  at  last  to  the  plaza  before  the 
station.  It  was  a  wide  puddle  where  I  thought  our 
craft  should  have  floundered,  but  it  made  its  way  to 
the  door,  and  left  us  dry  shod  within  and  glad  to  be 
quitting  the  city  of  my  young  dreams. 


XII 

THE    SUKPEISES    OF   EO1STDA 

THE  rain  that  pelted  sharply  into  the  puddle  before 
the  station  at  Granada  was  snow  on  the  Sierra,  and  the 
snow  that  fell  farther  and  farther  down  the  mountain 
sides  resolved  itself  over  the  Vega  into  a  fog  as  white 
and  almost  as  cold.  Half-way  across  the  storied  and 
fabled  plain  the  rain  stopped  and  the  fog  lifted,  and 
then  we  saw  by  day,  as  we  had  already  seen  by  night, 
how  the  Vega  was  plentifully  dotted  with  white  cottages 
amid  breadths  of  wheat-land  where  the  peasants  were 
plowing.  Here  and  there  were  fields  of  Indian  corn, 
and  in  a  certain  place  there  was  a  small  vineyard;  in 
one  of  the  middle  distances  there  spread  a  forest  of 
Lombardy  poplars,  yellow  as  gold,  and  there  was  abun 
dance  of  this  autumn  coloring  in  the  landscape,  which 
grew  lonelier  as  we  began  to  mount  from  the  level. 
Olives,  of  course,  abounded,  and  there  were  oak  woods 
and  clumps  of  wild  cherry  trees.  The  towns  were  far 
from  the  stations,  which  we  reached  at  the  rate  of  per 
haps  two  miles  an  hour  as  we  approached  the  top  of 
the  hills ;  and  we  might  have  got  out  and  walked  with 
out  fear  of  being  left  behind  by  our  train,  which  made 
long  stops,  as  if  to  get  its  breath  for  another  climb. 
Before  this  the  sole  companion  of  our  journey,  whom 
we  decided  to  be  a  landed  proprietor  coming  out  in  his 
riding-gear  to  inspect  his  possessions,  had  left  us,  but 
at  the  first  station  after  our  descent  began  other  pas- 

296 


THE    SUKPKISES    OF    RONDA 

sengers  got  in,  with  a  captain  of  Civil  Guards  among 
them,  very  loquacious  and  very  courteous,  and  much 
deferred  to  by  the  rest  of  us.  At  Bobadilla,  where 
again  we  had  tea  with  hot  goat's  milk  in  it,  we  changed 
cars,  and  from  that  on  we  had  the  company  of  a  Rock- 
Scorpion  pair  whose  name  was  beautifully  Italian  and 
whose  speech  was  beautifully  English,  as  the  speech  of 
those  born  at  Gibraltar  should  rightfully  be. 


It  was  quite  dark  at  Ronda  when  our  omnibus  drove 
into  the  gardened  grounds  of  one  of  those  admirable 
inns  which  an  English  company  is  building  in  Spain, 
and  put  us  down  at  the  door  of  the  office,  where  a  typical 
English  manageress  and  her  assistant  appointed  us 
pleasant  rooms  and  had  fires  kindled  in  them  while 
we  dined.  There  were  already  fires  in  the  pleasant 
reading-room,  which  did  not  diffuse  a  heat  too  great 
for  health  but  imparted  to  the  eye  a  sense  of  warmth 
such  as  we  had  experienced  nowhere  else  in  Spain. 
Over  all  was  spread  a  quiet  and  quieting  British  in 
fluence;  outside  of  the  office  the  nature  of  the  service 
was  Spanish,  but  the  character  of  it  was  English;  the 
Spanish  waiters  spoke  English,  and  they  looked  English 
in  dress  and  manner;  superficially  the  chambermaid 
was  as  English  as  one  could  have  found  her  in  the 
United  Kingdom,  but  at  heart  you  could  see  she  was 
as  absolutely  and  instinctively  a  Spanish  camerera  as 
any  in  a  hotel  of  Madrid  or  Seville.  In  the  atmosphere 
of  insularity  the  few  Spanish  guests  were  scarcely  dis 
tinguishable  from  Anglo-Saxons,  though  a  group  of 
magnificent  girls  at  a  middle  table,  quelled  by  the 
duenna-like  correctness  of  their  mother,  looked  with 

297 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

their  exaggerated  hair  and  eves  like   Spanish  ladies 
made  up  for  English  parts  in  a  play. 

We  had  our  breakfast  in  the  reading-room  where  all 
the  rest  were  breakfasting  and  trying  not  to  see  that 
they  were  keeping  one  another  from  the  fire.  It  was 
very  cold,  for  Honda  is  high  in  the  mountains  which 
hem  it  round  and  tower  far  above  it.  We  had  already 
had  our  first  glimpse  of  their  summits  from  our  own 
windows,  but  it  was  from  the  terrace  outside  the  read 
ing-room  that  we  felt  their  grandeur  most  after  we  had 
drunk  our  coffee:  we  could  scarcely  have  borne  it  be 
fore.  In  their  presence,  we  could  not  realize  at  once 
that  Ronda  itself  was  a  mountain,  a  mere  mighty  mass 
of  rock,  cleft  in  twain,  with  chasmal  depths  where  we 
saw  pygmy  men  and  mules  creeping  out  upon  the  valley 
that  stretched  upward  to  the  foot  of  the  Sierra.  Why 
there  should  ever  have  been  a  town  built  there  in  the 
prehistoric  beginning,  except  that  the  rock  was  so  im 
possible  to  take,  and  why  it  should  have  therefore  been 
taken  by  that  series  of  invaders  who  pervaded  all  Spain 
— by  the  Phoenicians,  by  the  Carthaginians,  by  the  Ro 
mans,  by  the  Goths,  by  the  Moors,  by  the  Christians, 
and  after  many  centuries  by  the  French,  and  finally 
by  the  Spaniards  again — it  would  not  be  easy  to  say. 
Among  its  many  conquerors,  the  Moors  left  their  im 
press  upon  it,  though  here  as  often  as  elsewhere  in 
Spain  their  impress  is  sometimes  merely  a  decoration 
of  earlier  Roman  work.  There  remains  a  Roman  bridge 
which  the  Moors  did  not  make  over  into  the  likeness 
of  their  architecture,  but  built  a  bridge  of  their  own 
which  also  remains  and  may  be  seen  from  the  mag 
nificent  structure  with  which  the  Spaniards  Have  arched 
the  abyss  where  the  river  rushes  writhing  and  foaming 
through  the  gorge  three  hundred  feet  below.  There  on 

the  steps  that  lead  from  the  brink,  the  eye  of  pity  may 

298 


THE    SUEPKISES    OF    RONDA 

still  see  the  files  of  Christian  captives  bringing  water  up 
to  their  Moslem  masters;  but  as  one  cannot  help  them 
now,  even  by  the  wildest  throe,  it  is  as  well  to  give  a 
vain  regret  to  the  architect  of  the  Spanish  bridge,  who 
fell  to  his  death  from  its  parapet,  and  then  push  on 
to  the  market  hard  by. 


ii 


You  have  probably  come  to  see  that  market  because 
you  have  read  in  your  guide-books  that  the  region  round 
about  Honda  is  one  of  the  richest  in  Spain  for  grapes 
and  peaches  and  medlars  and  melons  and  other  fruits 
whose  names  melt  in  the  mouth.  If  you  do  not  find 
in  the  market  the  abundance  you  expect  of  its  pictur- 
esqueness  you  must  blame  the  lateness  of  the  season, 
and  go  visit  the  bull-ring,  one  of  the  most  famous  in 
the  world,  for  Ronda  is  not  less  noted  for  its  toreros 
and  aficionados  than  for  its  vineyards  and  orchards. 
But  here  again  the  season  will  have  been  before  you 
with  the  glory  of  those  corridas  which  you  have  still 
hoped  not  to  witness  but  to  turn  from  as  an  example 
to  the  natives  before  the  first  horse  is  disemboweled 
or  the  first  bull  slain,  or  even  the  first  banderillero 
tossed  over  the  barrier. 

The  bull-ring  seemed  fast  shut  to  the  public  when 
we  approached  it,  but  we  found  ourselves  smilingly 
welcomed  to  the  interior  by  the  kindly  mother  in  charge. 
She  made  us  free  of  the  whole  vast  place,  where  eight 
thousand  <:  people  could  witness  in  perfect  comfort  the 
dying  agonies  of  beasts  and  men,  but  especially  she 
showed  us  the  chamber  over  the  gate,  full  of  bull 
fighting  properties :  the  pikes,  the  little  barbed  pennons, 
the  long  sword  by  which  the  bull  suffers  and  dies,  as 
well  as  the  cumbrous  saddles  and  bridles  and  spears 

20  299 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

for  the  unhappy  horses  and  their  riders.  She  was 
especially  compassionate  of  the  horses,  and  she  had 
apparently  no  pleasure  in  any  of  the  cruel  things, 
though  she  was  not  critical  of  the  sport.  The  King  of 
Spain  is  president  of  the  Honda  bull-fighting  associa 
tion,  and  she  took  us  into  the  royal  box,  which  is  the 
worthier  to  be  seen  because  under  it  the  bulls  are 
shunted  and  shouted  into  the  ring  from  the  pen  where 
they  have  been  kept  in  the  dark.  Before  we  escaped 
her  husband  sold  us  some  very  vivid  postal  cards  repre 
senting  the  sport ;  so  that  with  the  help  of  a  large  black 
cat  holding  the  center  of  the  ring,  we  felt  that  we  had 
seen  as  much  of  a  bull-fight  as  we  could  reasonably 
wish. 

We  were  seeing  the  wonders  of  the  city  in  the  guid 
ance  of  a  charming  boy  whom  we  had  found  in  wait 
for  us  at  the  gate  of  the  hotel  garden  when  we  came 
out.  He  offered  his  services  in  the  best  English  he 
had,  and  he  had  enough  of  it  to  match  my  Spanish 
word  for  word  throughout  the  morning.  He  led  us  from 
the  bull-ring  to  the  church  known  to  few  visitors,  I  be 
lieve,  where  the  last  male  descendant  of  Montezuma 
lies  entombed,  under  a  fit  inscription,  and  then  through 
the  Plaza  past  the  college  of  Montezuma,  probably 
named  for  this  heir  of  the  Aztec  empire.  I  do  not 
know  why  the  poor  prince  should  have  come  to  die 
in  Honda,  but  there  are  many  things  in  Honda  which 
I  could  not  explain:  especially  why  a  certain  fruit  is 
sold  by  an  old  woman  on  the  bridge.  Its  berries  are 
threaded  on  a  straw  and  look  like  the  most  luscious 
strawberries  but  taste  like  turpentine,  though  they  may 
be  avoided  under  the  name  of  madrones.  But  on  no 
account  would  I  have  the  reader  avoid  the  Church  of 
Santa  Maria  Mayor.  It  is  so  dark  within  that  he  will 
not  see  the  finely  carved  choir  seats  without  the  help 

300 


THE    SURPKISES    OF    HONDA 

of  matches,  or  the  pictures  at  all ;  but  it  is  worth  realiz 
ing,  as  one  presently  may,  that  the  hither  part  of  the 
church  is  a  tolerably  perfect  mosque  of  Moorish  archi 
tecture,  through  which  you  must  pass  to  the  Renaissance 
temple  of  the  Christian  faith. 

Near  by  is  the  Casa  de  Mondragon  which  he  should 
as  little  miss  if  he  has  any  pleasure  in  houses  with  two 
patios  perching  on  the  gardened  brink  of  a  precipice 
and  overlooking  one  of  the  most  beautiful  valleys  in 
the  whole  world,  with  donkey-trains  climbing  up  from 
it  over  the  face  of  the  cliff.  The  garden  is  as  charming 
as  red  geraniums  and  blue  cabbages  can  make  a  garden, 
and  the  house  is  fascinatingly  quaint  and  unutterably 
Spanish,  with  the  inner  patio  furnished  in  bright- 
colored  cushions  and  wicker  chairs,  and  looked  into  by 
a  brown  wooden  gallery.  A  stately  lemon-colored  elder 
ly  woman  followed  us  silently  about,  and  the  whole 
place  was  pervaded  by  a  smell  that  was  impossible  at 
the  time  and  now  seems  incredible. 


in 


I  here  hesitate  before  a  little  adventure  which  I  would 
not  make  too  much  of  nor  yet  minify:  it  seems  to  me 
so  gentle  and  winning.  I  had  long  meant  to  buy  a 
donkey,  and  I  thought  I  could  make  no  fitter  beginning 
to  this  end  than  by  buying  a  donkey's  head-stall  in  the 
country  where  donkeys  are  more  respected  and  more 
brilliantly  accoutred  than  anywhere  else  in  the  whole 
earth.  When  I  ventured  to  suggest  my  notion,  or  call 
it  dream,  to  our  young  guide,  he  instantly  imagined  it 
in  its  full  beauty,  and  he  led  us  directly  to  a  shop  in  the 
principal  street  which  for  the  richness  and  variety  of 
the  coloring  in  its  display  might  have  been  a  florist's 

301 


FAMILIAR  SPANISH  TRAVELS 

shop.  Donkeys'  trappings  in  brilliant  yellow,  vermil- 
lion,  and  magenta  hung  from  the  walls,  and  head-stalls, 
gorgeously  woven  and  embroidered,  dangled  from  the 
roof.  Among  them  and  under  them  the  donkeys' 
harness-maker  sat  at  his  work,  a  short,  brown,  hand 
some  man  with  eyes  that  seemed  the  more  prominent 
because  of  his  close-shaven  head.  We  chose  a  head 
stall  of  such  splendor  that  no  heart  could  have  resisted 
it,  and  while  he  sewed  to  it  the  twine  muzzle  which 
Spanish  donkeys  wear  on  their  noses  for  the  protection 
of  the  public,  our  guide  expatiated  upon  us,  and  said, 
among  other  things  to  our  credit,  that  we  were  from 
America  and  were  going  to  take  the  head-stall  back 
with  us. 

The  harness-maker  lifted  his  head  alertly.  "  Where, 
in  America  ?"  and  we  answered  for  ourselves,  "  From 
New  York." 

Then  the  harness-maker  rose  and  went  to  an  inner 
doorway  and  called  through  it  something  that  brought 
out  a  comely,  motherly  woman  as  alert  as  himself.  She 
verified  our  statement  for  herself,  and  having  paved 
the  way  firmly  for  her  next  question  she  asked,  "  Do 
you  know  the  Escuela  Mann  ?" 

As  well  as  our  surprise  would  let  us,  we  said  that  we 
knew  the  Mann  School,  both  where  and  what  it  was. 

She  waited  with  a  sort  of  rapturous  patience  before 
saying,  "  My  son,  our  eldest  son,  was  educated  at  the 
Escuela  Mann,  to  be  a  teacher,  and  now  he  is  a  pro 
fessor  in  the  Commercial  College  in  Puerto  Rico." 

If  our  joint  interest  in  this  did  not  satisfy  Her  ex 
pectation  I  for  my  part  can  never  forgive  myself; 
certainly  I  tried  to  put  as  much  passion  into  my  interest 
as  I  could,  when  she  added  that  his  education  at  the 
Escuela  Mann  was  without  cost  to  him.  By  this  time, 

in  fact,  I  was  so  proud  of  the  Escuela  Mann  that  I 

302 


THE    SURPRISES    OF    HONDA 

could  not  forbear  proclaiming  that  a  member  of  my 
own  family,  no  less  than  the  father  of  the  grandson 
for  whose  potential  donkey  I  was  buying  that  head 
stall,  was  one  of  the  architects  of  the  Escuela  Mann 
building. 

She  now  vanished  within,  and  when  she  came  out 
she  brought  her  daughter,  a  gentle  young  girl  who  sat 
down  and  smiled  upon  us  through  the  rest  of  the  inter 
view.  She  brought  also  an  armful  of  books,  the  Span 
ish-English  Ollendorif  which  her  son  had  used  in  study 
ing  our  language,  his  dictionary,  and  the  copy-book 
where  he  had  written  his  exercises,  with  two  photo 
graphs  of  him,  not  yet  too  Americanized;  and  she 
showed  us  not  only  how  correctly  but  how  beautifully 
his  exercises  were  done.  If  I  did  not  admire  these 
enough,  again  I  cannot  forgive  myself,  but  she  seemed 
satisfied  with  what  I  did,  and  she  talked  on  about 
him,  not  too  loquaciously,  but  lovingly  and  lovably 
as  a  mother  should,  and  proudly  as  the  mother  of  such 
a  boy  should,  though  without  vainglory;  I  have  for 
gotten  to  say  that  she  had  a  certain  distinction  of  face, 
and  was  appropriately  dressed  in  black.  By  this  time 
we  felt  that  a  head-stall  for  such  a  donkey  as  I  was 
going  to  buy  was  not  enough  to  get  of  such  people,  and 
I  added  a  piece  of  embroidered  leather  such  as  goes 
in  Spain  on  the  front  of  a  donkey's  saddle ;  if  we  could 
not  use  it  so,  in  final  defect  of  the  donkey,  we  could 
put  it  on  a  veranda  chair.  The  saddler  gave  it  at  so 
low  a  price  that  we  perceived  he  must  have  tacitly 
abated  something  from  the  usual  demand,  and  when 
we  did  not  try  to  beat  him  down,  his  wife  went  again 
into  that  inner  room  and  came  out  with  an  iron-holder 
of  scarlet  flannel  backed  with  canvas,  and  fringed  with 
magenta,  and  richly  inwrought  with  a  Moorish  design 

in  white,  yellow,  green,  and  purple.     I  say  Moorish, 

303 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAVELS 

because  one  must  say  something,  but  if  it  was  a  pattern 
of  her  own  invention  the  gift  was  the  more  precious 
when  she  bestowed  it  on  the  sister  of  one  of  the  archi 
tects  of  the  Escuela  Mann.  That  led  to  more  conversa 
tion  about  the  Escuela  Mann,  and  about  the  graduate  of 
it  who  was  now  a  professor  in  Puerto  Eico,  and  we  all 
grew  such  friends,  and  so  proud  of  one  another,  and  of 
the  country  so  wide  open  to  the  talents  without  cost  to 
them,  that  when  I  asked  her  if  she  would  not  sometime 
be  going  to  America,  her  husband  answered  almost 
fiercely  in  his  determination,  "  I  am  going  when  I  have 
learned  English!"  and  to  prove  that  this  was  no  idle 
boast,  he  pronounced  some  words  of  our  language  at 
random,  but  very  well.  We  parted  in  a  glow  of  recip 
rocal  esteem  and  I  still  think  of  that  quarter-hour  as 
one  of  my  happiest;  and  whatever  others  may  say,  I 
say  that  to  have  done  such  a  favor  to  one  Spanish  family 
as  the  Escuela  Mann  had  been  the  means  of  our  nation 
doing  this  one  was  a  greater  thing  than  to  have  taken 
Cuba  from  Spain  and  bought  the  Philippines  when  we 
had  seized  them  already  and  had  led  the  Filipinos  to 
believe  that  we  meant  to  give  their  islands  to  them. 


IV 


Suddenly,  on  the  way  home  to  our  very  English 
hotel,  the  air  of  Honda  seemed  charged  with  English. 
We  were  already  used  to  the  English  of  our  young 
guide,  which  so  far  as  it  went,  went  firmly  and  cour 
ageously  after  forethought  and  reflection  for  each  sen 
tence,  but  we  were  not  quite  prepared  for  the  English 
of  two  polite  youths  who  lifted  their  hats  as  they  passed 
us  and  said,  "  Good  afternoon."  The  general  English 

lasted  quite  overnight  and  far  into  the  next  day  when 

304 


LOOKING  ACROSS  THE  NEW  BRIDGE    (300  FEET  HIGH)   OVER  THE   GUADA- 
LAVIAR   GORGE,    RONDA 


THE    SURPKISES    OF    KONDA 

we  found  several  natives  prepared  to  try  it  on  us  in  the 
pretty  Alameda,  and  learned  from  one,  who  proved  to 
be  the  teacher  of  it  in.  the  public  school,  that  there  were 
some  twenty  boys  studying  it  there :  heaven  knows  why, 
but  the  English  hotel  and  its  success  may  have  suggested 
it  to  them  as  a  means  of  prosperity.  The  students  seem 
each  prepared  to  guide  strangers  through  Honda,  but 
sometimes  they  fail  of  strangers.  That  was  the  case 
with  the  pathetic  young  hunchback  whom  we  met  in 
Alameda,  and  who  owned  that  he  had  guided  none  that 
day.  In  view  of  this  and  as  a  prophylactic  against  a 
course  of  bad  luck,  I  made  so  bold  as  to  ask  if  I  might 
venture  to  repair  the  loss  of  the  peseta  which  he  would 
otherwise  have  earned.  He  smiled  wanly,  and  then 
with  the  countenance  of  the  teacher,  he  submitted  and 
thanked  me  in  English  which  I  can  cordially  recom 
mend  to  strangers  knowing  no  Spanish. 

All  this  was  at  the  end  of  another  morning  when  W3 
had  set  out  with  the  purpose  of  seeing  the  rest  of  Ronda 
for  ourselves.  We  chose  a  back  street  parallel  to  the 
great  thoroughfare  leading  to  the  new  bridge,  and  of  a 
squalor  which  we  might  have  imagined  but  had  not. 
The  dwellers  in  the  decent-looking  houses  did  not  seem 
to  mind  the  sights  and  scents  of  their  street,  but  these 
revolted  us,  and  we  made  haste  out  of  it  into  the  avenue 
where  the  greater  world  of  Ronda  was  strolling  or 
standing  about,  but  preferably  standing  about.  In  the 
midst  of  it,  at  the  entrance  of  the  new  bridge  we  heard 
ourselves  civilly  saluted  and  recognized  with  some  hesi 
tation  the  donkey's  harness-maker  who,  in  his  Sunday 
dress  and  with  his  hat  on,  was  not  just  the  work-day 
presence  we  knew.  He  held  by  the  hand  a  pretty  boy 
of  eleven  years,  whom  he  introduced  as  his  second  son, 
self-destined  to  follow  the  elder  brother  to  America, 

and  duly  take  up  the  profession  of  teaching  in  Puerto 

305 


FAMILIAK    SPANISH    TKAYELS 

Rico  after  experiencing  the  advantages  of  the  Escuela 
Mann.  His  father  said  that  he  already  knew  some 
English,  and  he  proposed  that  the  boy  should  go  ahout 
with  us  and  practise  it,  and  after  polite  demur  and 
insistence  the  child  came  with  us,  to  our  great  pleasure. 
He  bore  himself  with  fit  gravity,  in  his  cap  and  long 
linen  pinafore  as  he  went  before  us,  and  we  were  per 
sonally  proud  of  his  fine,  long  face  and  his  serious  eyes, 
dark  and  darkened  yet  more  by  their  long  lashes.  He 
knew  the  way  to  just  such  a  book  store  as  we  wanted, 
where  the  lady  behind  the  desk  knew  him  and  willingly 
promised  to  get  me  some  books  in  the  Andalusian  dia 
lect,  and  send  them  to  our  hotel  by  him  at  half  past 
twelve.  Naturally  she  did  not  do  so,  but  he  came  to 
report  her  failure  to  get  them.  We  had  offered  to  pay 
him  for  his  trouble,  but  he  forbade  us,  and  when  we 
had  overcome  his  scruple  he  brought  the  money  back, 
and  we  had  our  trouble  over  again  to  make  him  keep  it. 
To  this  hour  I  do  not  know  how  we  ever  brought  our 
selves*  to  part  with  him;  perhaps  it  was  his  promise 
of  coming  to  America  next  year  that  prevailed  with 
us ;  his  brother  was  returning  on  a  visit  and  then  they 
were  going  back  together. 


Our  search  for  literature  in  Eonda  was  not  wholly  a 
failure.  At  another  bookstore,  I  found  one  of  those 
local  histories  which  I  was  always  vainly  trying  for 
in  other  Spanish  towns,  and  I  can  praise  the  Historia 
de  Honda  por  Federico  Lozano  Gutierrez  as  well  done, 
and  telling  all  that  one  would  ask  to  know  about  that 
famous  city.  The  author's  picture  is  on  the  cover,  and 
with  his  charming  letter  dedicating  the  book  to  his 

father  goes  far  to  win  the  reader's  heart.     Outside  the 

306 


THE    SURPRISES    OF    RONDA 

bookseller's  a  blind  minstrel  was  playing  the  guitar 
in  the  care  of  a  small  boy  who  was  selling,  not  sing 
ing,  the  ballads.  They  celebrated  the  prowess  of  Spain 
in  recent  wars,  and  it  would  not  be  praising  them  too 
highly  to  say  that  they  seemed  such  as  might  have  been 
written  by  a  drum-major.  Not  that  I  think  less  of  them 
for  that  reason,  or  that  I  think  I  need  humble  myself 
greatly  to  the  historian  of  Ronda  for  associating  their 
purchase  with  that  of  his  excellent  little  book.  If  I 
had  bought  some  of  the  blind  minstrel's  almanacs  and 
jest-books  I  might  indeed  apologize,  but  ballads  are  an 
other  thing. 

After  we  left  the  bookseller's,  our  little  guide  asked 
us  if  we  would  like  to  see  a  church,  and  we  said  that  we 
would,  and  he  took  us  into  a  white  and  gold  interior, 
with  altar  splendors  out  of  proportion  to  its  simplicity, 
all  in  the  charge  of  a  boy  no  older  than  himself,  who 
was  presently  joined  by  two  other  contemporaries. 
They  followed  us  gravely  about,  and  we  felt  that  it 
was  an  even  thing  between  ourselves  and  the  church 
as  objects  of  interest  equally  ignored  by  Baedeker. 
Then  we  thought  we  would  go  home  and  proposed  going 
by  the  Alameda. 

That  is  a  beautiful  place,  where  one  may  walk  a 
good  deal,  and  drive,  rather  less,  but  not  sit  down  much 
unless  indeed  one  likes  being  swarmed  upon  by  the 
beggars  who  have  a  just  priority  of  the  benches.  There 
seemed  at  first  to  be  nobody  walking  in  the  Alameda 
except  a  gentleman  pacing  to  and  from  the  handsome 
modern  house  at  the  first  corner,  which  our  guide  said 
was  this  cavalier's  house.  He  interested  me  beyond  any 
reason  I  could  give ;  he  looked  as  if  he  might  represent 
the  highest  society  in  Bonda,  but  did  not  find  it  an 
adequate  occupation,  and  might  well  have  interests  and 

ambitions  beyond  it.     I  make  him  my  excuses  for  in- 

307 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

truding  my  print  upon  him,  but  I  would  give  untold 
gold  if  I  had  it  to  know  all  about  such  a  man  in  such 
a  city,  walking  up  and  down  under  the  embrowning 
trees  and  shrinking  flowers  of  its  Alameda,  on  a  Sunday 
morning  like  that. 

Our  guide  led  us  to  the  back  gate  of  our  hotel  garden, 
where  we  found  ourselves  in  the  company  of  several 
other  students  of  English.  There  was  our  charming 
young  guide  of  the  day  before  and  there  was  that  sad 
hunchback  already  mentioned,  and  there  was  their 
teacher  who  seemed  so  few  years  older  and  master  of 
so  little  more  English.  Together  we  looked  into  the 
valley  into  which  the  vision  makes  its  prodigious  plunge 
at  Honda  before  lifting  again  over  the  fertile  plain  to 
the  amphitheater  of  its  mighty  mountains ;  and  there  we 
took  leave  of  that  nice  boy  who  would  not  follow  us 
into  our  garden  because,  as  he  showed  us  by  the  sign, 
it  was  forbidden  to  any  but  guests.  He  said  he  was 
going  into  the  country  with  his  family  for  the  after 
noon,  and  with  some  difficulty  he  owned  that  he  ex 
pected  to  play  there;  it  was  truly  an  admission  hard 
to  make  for  a  boy  of  his  gravity.  We  shook  hands  at 
parting  with  him,  and  with  our  yesterday's  guide,  and 
with  the  teacher  and  with  the  hunchback;  they  all 
offered  it  in  the  bond  of  our  common  English;  and 
then  we  felt  that  we  had  parted  with  much,  very  much 
of  what  was  sweetest  and  best  in  Honda. 


VI 


The  day  had  been  so  lovely  till  now  that  we  said  we 
would  stay  many  days  in  Ronda,  and  we  loitered  in 
the  sun  admiring  the  garden ;  the  young  landlady  among 

her  flowers  said  that  all  the  soil  had  to  be  brought  for 

308 


THE    SURPRISES    OF    RONDA 

it  in  carts  and  panniers,  and  this  made  us  admire  its 
autumn  blaze  the  more.  That  afternoon  we  had  planned 
taking  our  tea  on  the  terrace  for  the  advantage  of  look 
ing  at  the  sunset  light  on  the  mountains,  but  suddenly 
great  black  clouds  blotted  it  out.  Then  we  lost  courage ; 
it  appeared  to  us  that  it  would  be  both  brighter  and 
warmer  by  the  sea  and  that  near  Gibraltar  we  could 
more  effectually  prevent  our  steamer  from  getting  away 
to  New  York  without  us.  We  called  for  our  bill,  and 
after  luncheon  the  head  waiter  who  brought  it  said  that 
the  large  black  cat  which  had  just  made  friends  with 
us  always  woke  him  if  he  slept  late  in  the  morning 
and  followed  him  into  the  town  like  a  dog  when  he 
walked  there. 

It  was  hard  to  part  with  a  cat  like  that,  but  it  was 
hard  to  part  with  anything  in  Ronda.  Yet  we  made 
the  break,  and  instead  of  ruining  over  the  precipitous 
face  of  the  rock  where  the  city  stands,  as  we  might 
have  expected,  we  glided  smoothly  down  the  long  grade 
into  the  storm-swept  lowlands  sloping  to  the  sea.  They 
grew  more  fertile  as  we  descended  and  after  we  had 
left  a  mountain  valley  where  the  mist  hung  grayest  and 
chillest,  we  suddenly  burst  into  a  region  of  mellow 
fruitfulness,  where  the  haze  was  all  luminous,  and 
where  the  oranges  hung  gold  and  green  upon  the  trees, 
and  the  women  brought  grapes  and  peaches  and  apples 
to  the  train.  The  towns  seemed  to  welcome  us  south 
ward  and  the  woods  we  knew  instantly  to  be  of  cork 
trees,  with  Don  Quixote  and  Sancho  Panza  under  their 
branches  anywhere  we  chose  to  look. 

Otherwise,  the  journey  was  without  those  incidents 
which  have  so  often  rendered  these  pages  thrilling. 
Just  before  we  left  Ronda  a  couple,  self-evidently  the 
domestics  of  a  good  family,  got  into  our  first-class  car 
riage  though  they  had  unquestionably  only  third-class 

309 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

tickets.  They  had  the  good  family's  dog  with  them,  and 
after  an  unintelligible  appeal  to  us  and  to  the  young 
English  couple  in  the  other  corner,  they  remained  and 
banished  any  misgivings  they  had  by  cheerful  dialogue. 
The  dog  coiled  himself  down  at  my  feet  and  put  his 
nose  close  to  my  ankles,  so  that  without  rousing  his 
resentment  I  could  not  express  in  Spanish  my  indigna 
tion  at  what  I  felt  to  be  an  outrageous  intrusion:  ser 
vants,  we  all  are,  but  in  traveling  first  class  one  must 
draw  the  line  at  dogs.  I  said  as  much  to  the  English 
couple,  but  they  silently  refused  any  part  in  the  demon 
stration.  Presently  the  conductor  came  out  to  the  win 
dow  for  our  fares,  and  he  made  the  Spanish  pair  observe 
that  they  had  third-class  tickets  and  their  dog  had  none. 
He  told  them  they  must  get  out,  but  they  noted  to  him 
the  fact  that  none  of  us  had  objected  to  their  company, 
or  their  dog's,  and  they  all  remained,  referring  them 
selves  to  us  for  sympathy  when  the  conductor  left. 
After  the  next  station  the  same  thing  happened  with 
little  change;  the  conductor  was  perhaps  firmer  and 
they  rather  more  yielding  in  their  disobedience.  Once 
more  after  a  stop  the  conductor  appeared  and  told  them 
that  when  the  train  halted  again,  they  and  their  dog 
must  certainly  get  out.  Then  something  surprising 
happened :  they  really  got  out,  and  very  amiably ;  per 
haps  it  was  the  place  where  they  had  always  meant  to 
get  out;  but  it  was  a  great  triumph  for  the  railway 
company,  which  owed  nothing  in  the  way  of  countenance 
to  the  young  English  couple;  they  had  done  nothing 
but  lunch  from  their  basket  and  bottle.  We  ourselves 
arrived  safely  soon  after  nightfall  at  Algeciras,  just 
in  time  for  dinner  in  the  comfortable  mother -hotel 
whose  pretty  daughter  had  made  us  SO  mucfi  at  home 
in  Honda. 


XIII 
ALGECIRAS    AND    TAEIFA 

WHEN  we  walked  out  on  the  terrace  of  our  hotel  at 
Algeciras  after  breakfast,  the  first  morning,  we  were 
greeted  by  the  familiar  form  of  the  Rock  of  Gibraltar 
still  advertising,  as  we  had  seen  it  three  years  before, 
a  well-known  American  insurance  company.  It  rose 
beyond  five  miles  of  land-locked  water,  which  we  were 
to  cross  every  other  day  for  three  weeks  on  many  idle 
and  anxious  errands,  until  we  sailed  from  it  at  last  for 
New  York. 

Meanwhile  Algeciras  was  altogether  delightful  not 
only  because  of  our  Kate-Greenaway  hotel,  embowered 
in  ten  or  twelve  acres  of  gardened  ground,  with  walks 
going  and  coming  under  its  palms  and  eucalyptuses, 
beside  beds  of  geraniums  and  past  trellises  of  roses  and 
jasmines,  all  in  the  keeping  of  a  captive  stork  which 
was  apt  unexpectedly  to  meet  the  stranger  and  clap  its 
formidable  mandibles  at  him,  and  then  hop  away  with 
half-lifted  wings.  Algeciras  had  other  claims  which  it 
urged  day  after  day  more  winningly  upon  us  as  the 
last  place  where  we  should  feel  the  charm  of  Spain 
unbroken  in  the  tradition  which  reaches  from  modern 
fact  far  back  into  antique  fable.  I  will  not  follow  it 
beyond  the  historic  clue,  for  I  think  the  reader  ought 
to  be  satisfied  with  knowing  that  the  Moors  held  it  as 
early  as  the  seven  hundreds  and  as  late  as  the  thirteen 
hundreds,  when  the  Christians  definitively  recaptured 

311 


FAMILIAR  SPANISH  TRAVELS 

it  and  their  kings  became  kings  of  Algeciras  as  well 
as  kings  of  Spain,  and  remain  so  to  this  day.  At  the 
end  of  the  eighteenth  century  one  of  these  kings  made 
it  his  lookout  for  watching  the  movements  of  the  in 
imical  English  fleets,  and  then  Algeciras  slumbered 
again,  haunted  only  by  "  a  deep  dream  of  peace  "  till 
the  European  diplomats,  rather  unexpectedly  assisted 
by  an  American  envoy,  made  it  the  scene  of  their  fa 
mous  conference  for  settling  the  Morocco  question  in 
1906. 


I  think  this  is  my  whole  duty  to  the  political  inter 
est  of  Algeciras,  and  until  I  come  to  our  excursion  to 
Tarifa  I  am  going  to  give  myself  altogether  to  our 
pleasure  in  the  place  unvexed  by  any  event  of  his 
tory.  I  disdain  even  to  note  that  the  Moors  took  the 
city  again  from  the  Christians,  after  twenty-five  years, 
and  demolished  it,  for  I  prefer  to  remember  it  as  it  has 
been  rebuilt  and  lies  white  by  its  bay,  a  series  of  red- 
tiled  levels  of  roof  with  a  few  church-towers  topping 
them.  It  is  a  pretty  place,  and  remarkably  clean,  in 
habited  mostly  by  beggars,  with  a  minority  of  in 
dustrial,  commercial,  and  professional  citizens,  who 
live  in  agreeable  little  houses,  with  patios  open  to  the 
passer,  and  with  balconies  overhanging  him.  It  has 
of  course  a  bull-ring,  enviously  closed  during  our  stay, 
and  it  has  one  of  the  pleasantest  Alamedas  and  the  best 
swept  in  Spain,  where  some  nice  boys  are  playing  in 
the  afternoon  sun,  and  a  gentleman,  coming  out  of  one 
of  the  villas  bordering  on  it,  is  courteously  interested 
in  the  two  strangers  whom  he  sees  sitting  on  a  bench 
beside  the  walk,  with  the  leaves  of  the  plane  trees  drop 
ping  round  them  in  the  still  air. 

312 


ALGECIRAS    AND    TARIFA 

The  Alameda  is  quite  at  the  thither  end  of  Algeciras. 
At  the  end  next  our  hotel,  but  with  the  intervention  of 
a  space  of  cliff,  topped  and  faced  by  summer  cottages 
and  gardens,  is  the  station  with  a  train  usually  ready 
to  start  from  it  for  Ronda  or  Seville  or  Malaga,  I  do 
not  know  which,  and  with  the  usual  company  of  freight- 
cars  idling  about,  empty  or  laden  with  sheets  of  cork, 
as  indifferent  to  them  as  if  they  were  so  much  mere 
pine  or  spruce  lumber.  There  is  a  sufficiently  attractive 
hotel  here  for  transients,  and  as  an  allurement  to  the 
marine  and  military  leisure  of  Gibraltar,  "  The  Picnic 
Restaurant,"  and  "  The  Cabin  Tea  Room,"  where  no 
doubt  there  is  something  to  be  had  beside  sandwiches 
and  tea.  Here  also  is  the  pier  for  the  Gibraltar  boats, 
with  the  Spanish  custom-house  which  their  passengers 
must  pass  through  and  have  their  packages  and  per 
sons  searched  for  contraband.  One  heard  of  wild 
caprices  on  the  part  of  the  inspectors  in  levying  duties 
which  were  sometimes  made  to  pass  the  prime  cost  of 
the  goods  in  Gibraltar.  I  myself  only  carried  in  books 
which  after  the  first  few  declarations  were  recognized 
as  of  no  imaginable  value  and  passed  with  a  genial 
tolerance,  as  a  sort  of  joke,  by  officers  whom  I  saw 
feeling  the  persons  of  their  fellow-Spaniards  unspar 
ingly  over. 

We  had,  if  anything,  less  business  really  in  Algeciras 
than  in  Gibraltar,  but  we  went  into  the  town  nearly 
every  afternoon,  and  wantonly  bought  things.  By  this 
means  we  proved  that  the  Andalusian  shopmen  had  not 
the  proud  phlegm  of  the  Castilians  across  their  counters. 
In  the  principal  dry-goods  store  two  salesmen  rivaled 
each  other  in  showing  us  politeness,  and  sent  home  our 
small  purchases  as  promptly  as  if  we  had  done  them 
a  favor  in  buying.  We  were  indeed  the  wonder  of  our 
fellow-customers  who  were  not  buying;  but  our  pride 

313 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

was  brought  down  in  the  little  shop  where  the  pro 
prietress  was  too  much  concerned  in  cooking  her  dinner 
(it  smelled  delicious)  to  mind  our  wish  for  a  very  cheap 
green  vase,  inestimably  Spanish  after  we  got  it  home. 
However,  in  another  shop  where  the  lady  was  ironing 
her  week's  wash  on  the  counter,  a  lady  friend  who  was 
making  her  an  afternoon  call  got  such  a  vase  down  for 
us  and  transacted  the  negotiation  out  of  pure  good  will 
for  both  parties  to  it. 

Parallel  with  the  railway  was  a  channel  where  small 
fishing-craft  lay,  and  where  a  leisurely  dredging-ma- 
chine  was  stirring  up  the  depths  in  a  stench  so  dire  that 
I  wonder  we  do  not  smell  it  across  the  Atlantic.  Over 
this  channel  a  bridge  led  into  the  town,  and  offered  the 
convenient  support  of  its  parapet  to  the  crowd  of  spec 
tators  who  wished  to  inhale  that  powerful  odor  at  their 
ease,  and  who  hung  there  throughout  the  working-day; 
the  working-day  of  the  dredging-machine,  that  is.  The 
population  was  so  much  absorbed  in  this  that  when  we 
first  crossed  into  ':he  town,  we  found  no  beggar  children 
even,  though  there  were  a  few  blind  beggarmen,  but 
so  few  that  a  boy  who  had  one  of  them  in  charge  was 
obliged  to  leave  off  smelling  the  river  and  run  and 
hunt  him  up  for  us.  Other  boys  were  busy  in  street- 
sweeping  and  b-r-r-r-r-ing  to  the  donkeys  that  carried 
off  the  sweepings  in  panniers;  and  in  the  fine  large 
plaza  before  the  principal  church  of  Algeciras  there 
was  a  boy  who  had  plainly  nothing  but  mischief  to  do, 
though  he  did  not  molest  us  farther  than  to  ask  in  Eng 
lish,  "  Want  to  see  the  cathedral  ?"  Then  he  went  his 
way  swiftly  and  we  went  into  the  church,  which  we 
found  very  whitewashed  and  very  Moorish  in  archi 
tecture,  but  very  Spanish  in  the  Blessed  Virgins  on 
most  of  the  altars,  dressed  in  brocades  and  jewels.  A 
sacristan  was  brushing  and  dusting  the  place,  but  he 

314 


ALGECIEAS    AND    TARIFA 

did  not  bother  us,  and  we  went  freely  about  among  the 
tall  candles  standing  on  the  floor  as  well  as  on  the  altars, 
and  bearing  each  a  placard  attached  with  black  rib 
bon,  and  dedicated  in  black  letters  on  silver  "  To  the 
Repose  of  This  or  That "  one  among  the  dead. 

The  meaning  was  evident  enough,  but  we  sought 
something  further  of  the  druggist  at  the  corner,  who 
did  his  best  for  us  in  such  English  as  he  had.  It  was 
not  quite  the  English  of  Honda;  but  he  praised  his 
grammar  while  he  owned  that  his  vocabulary  was  in 
decay  from  want  of  practise.  In  fact,  he  well-nigh 
committed  us  to  the  purchase  of  one  of  those  votive 
candles,  which  he  understood  we  wished  to  buy;  he  all 
but  sent  to  the  sacristan  to  get  one.  There  were  several 
onlookers,  as  there  always  are  in  Latin  pharmacies,  and 
there  was  a  sad  young  mother  waiting  for  medicine  with 
a  sick  baby  in  her  arms.  The  druggist  said  it  had 
fever  of  the  stomach ;  he  seemed  proud  of  the  fact,  and 
some  talk  passed  between  him  and  the  bystanders  which 
related  to  it.  We  asked  if  he  had  any  of  the  quince 
jelly  which  we  had  learned  to  like  in  Seville,  but  he 
could  only  refer  us  to  the  confectioner's  on  the  other 
corner.  Here  was  not  indeed  quince  jelly,  but  we 
compromised  on  quince  cheese,  as  the  English  call  it; 
and  we  bought  several  boxes  of  it  to  take  to  America, 
which  I  am  sorry  to  say  moulded  before  our  voyage 
began.,  and  had  to  be  thrown  away.  Near  this  confec 
tioner's  was  a  booth  where  boiled  sweet-potatoes  were 
sold,  with  oranges  and  joints  of  sugar-cane,  and,  spitted 
on  straws,  that  terrible  fruit  of  the  strawberry  tree 
which  we  had  tasted  at  Ronda  without  wishing  to  taste 
it  ever  again.  Yet  there  was  a  boy  boldly  buying  sev 
eral  straws  of  it  and  chancing  the  intoxication  which 
over-indulgence  in  it  is  said  to  cause.  Whether  the 
excitement  of  these  events  was  too  great  or  not,  we 

21  315 


FAMILIAK  SPANISH  TKAVELS 

found  ourselves  suddenly  unwilling,  if  not  unable,  to 
walk  back  to  our  hotel,  and  we  took  a  cab  of  the  three 
standing  in  the  plaza.  One  was  without  a  horse,  an 
other  without  a  driver,  but  the  third  had  both,  as  in 
some  sort  of  riddle,  and  we  had  no  sooner  taken  it  than 
a  horse  was  put  into  the  first  and  a  driver  ran  out  and 
got  on  the  box  of  the  second,  as  if  that  was  the  answer 
to  the  riddle. 


ii 


It  was  then  too  late  for  them  to  share  our  custom, 
but  I  am  not  sure  that  it  was  not  one  of  these  very 
horses  or  drivers  whom  we  got  another  day  for  our 
drive  about  the  town  and  its  suburbs,  and  an  excursion 
to  a  section  of  the  Moorish  aqueduct  which  remains 
after  a  thousand  years.  You  can  see  it  at  a  distance, 
but  no  horse  or  driver  in  our  employ  could  ever  find 
the  way  to  it ;  in  fact,  it  seemed  to  vanish  on  approach, 
and  we  were  always  bringing  up  in  our  hotel  gardens 
without  having  got  to  it ;  I  do  not  know  what  we  should 
have  done  with  it  if  we  had.  We  were  not  able  to  do 
anything  definite  with  the  new  villas  built  or  building 
around  Algeciras,  though  they  looked  very  livable,  and 
seemed  proof  of  a  prosperity  in  the  place  for  which  I 
can  give  no  reason  except  the  great  natural  beauty  of 
the  nearer  neighborhood,  and  the  magnificence  of  the 
farther,  mountain-walled  and  skyed  over  with  a  Sep 
tember  blue  in  November.  I  think  it  would  be  a  good 
place  to  spend  the  winter  if  one  liked  each  day  to  be 
exactly  like  every  other.  I  do  not  know  whether  it  is 
inhabited  by  English  people  from  Gibraltar,  where  there 
are  of  course  those  resources  of  sport  and  society  which 
an  English  colony  always  carries  with  it. 

The  popular  amusements  of  Algeciras  in  the  off 
316 


ALGECIRAS    AND    TARIFA 

seacon  for  bull-feasts-  did  not  readily  lend  themselves 
to  observance.  Chiefly  we  noted  two  young  men  with 
a  graphophone  on  wheels  which,  being  pushed  about, 
wheezed  out  the  latest  songs  to  the  acceptance  of  large 
crowds.  We  ourselves  amused  a  large  crowd  when  one 
of  us  attempted  to  sketch  the  yellow  f  a§ade  of  a  church 
so  small  that  it  seemed  all  facade;  and  another  day 
when  that  one  of  us  who  held  the  coppers,  commonly 
kept  sacred  to  blind  beggars,  delighted  an  innumerable 
multitude  of  mendicants  having  their  eyesight  per 
fect.  They  were  most  of  them  in  the  vigor  of  youth, 
and  they  were  waiting  on  a  certain  street  for  the  month 
ly  dole  with  which  a  resident  of  Algeciras  may  buy 
immunity  for  all  the  other  days  of  the  month.  They 
instantly  recognized  in  the  stranger  a  fraudulent  tax- 
dodger,  and  when  he  attempted  tardily  to  purchase 
immunity  they  poured  upon  him ;  in  front,  behind,  on 
both  sides,  all  round,  they  boiled  up  and  bubbled  about 
him;  and  the  exhaustion  of  his  riches  alone  saved  him 
alive.  It  must  have  been  a  wonderful  spectacle,  and 
I  do  not  suppose  the  like  of  it  was  ever  seen  in  Algeciras 
before.  It  was  a  triumph  over  charity,  and  left  quite 
out  of  comparison  the  organized  onsets  of  the  infant 
gang  which  always  beset  the  way  to  the  hotel  under  a 
leader  whose  battle-cry,  at  once  a  demand  and  a  prom 
ise,  was  "  Penny-go-way,  Penny-go-way !" 

Along  that  pleasant  shore  bare -legged  fishermen 
spread  their  nets,  and  going  and  coming  by  the  Gibral 
tar  boats  were  sometimes  white-hosed,  brown-cloaked, 
white-turbaned  Moors,  who  occasionally  wore  Christian 
boots,  but  otherwise  looked  just  such  Moslems  as  landed 
at  Algeciras  in  the  eighth  century ;  people  do  not  change 
much  in  Africa.  They  were  probably  hucksters  from 
the  Moorish  market  in  Gibraltar,  where  they  had  given 

their  geese  and  turkeys  the  holiday  they  were  taking 

317 


FAMILIAE    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

themselves.  They  were  handsome  men,  tall  and  vigor 
ous,  but  they  did  not  win  me  to  sympathy  with  their 
architecture  or  religion,  and  I  am  not  sure  but,  if  there 
had  been  any  concerted  movement  against  them  on  the 
landing  at  Algeciras,  I  should  have  joined  in  driving 
them  out  of  Spain.  As  it  was  I  made  as  much  Africa 
as  I  could  of  them  in  defect  of  crossing  to  Tangier, 
which  we  had  firmly  meant  to  do,  but  which  we  for 
bore  doing  till  the  plague  had  ceased  to  rage  there.  By 
this  time  the  boat  which  touched  at  Tangier  on  the  way 
to  Cadiz  stopped  going  to  Cadiz,  and  if  we  could  not 
go  to  Cadiz  we  did  not  care  for  going  to  Tangier.  It 
was  something  like  this,  if  not  quite  like  it,  and  it  ended 
in  our.  seeing  Africa  only  from  the  southernmost  verge 
of  Europe  at  Tarifa.  At  that  little  distance  across  it 
looked  dazzlingly  white,  like  the  cotton  vestments  of 
those  Moorish  marketmen,  but  probably  would  have 
been  no  cleaner  on  closer  approach. 


in 


As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  were  very  near  not  going 
even  to  Tarifa,  though  we  had  promised  ourselves  going 
from  the  first.  But  it  was  very  charming  to  linger 
in  the  civilization  of  that  hotel ;  to  wander  through  its 
garden  paths  in  the  afternoon  after  a  forenoon's  writ 
ing  and  inhale  the  keen  aromatic  odors  of  the  euca 
lyptus,  and  when  the  day  waned  to  have  tea  at  an  iron 
table  on  the  seaward  terrace.  Or  if  we  went  to  Gi 
braltar,  it  was  interesting  to  wonder  why  we  had  gone, 
and  to  be  so  glad  of  getting  back,  and  after  dinner 
joining  a  pleasant  international  group  in  the  long 
reading-room  with  the  hearth-fires  at  either  end  which, 
if  you  got  near  them,  were  so  comforting  against  the 

318 


ALGECIRAS    AND    TARIFA 

evening  chill.  Sometimes  the  pleasure  of  the  time 
was  heightened  by  the  rain  pattering  on  the  glass 
roof  of  the  patio,  where  in  the  afternoon  a  bulky 
Spanish  mother  sat  mute  beside  her  basket  of  laces 
which  you  could  buy  if  you  would,  but  need  not 
if  you  would  rather  not;  in  either  case  she  smiled 
placidly. 

At  last  we  did  get  together  courage  enough  to  drive 
twelve  miles  over  the  hills  to  Tarifa,  but  this  courage 
was  pieced  out  of  the  fragments  of  the  courage  we  had 
lost  for  going  to  Cadiz  by  the  public  automobile  which 
runs  daily  from  Algeciras.  The  road  after  you  passed 
Tarifa  was  so  bad  that  those  who  had  endured  it  said 
nobody  could  endure  it,  and  in  such  a  case  I  was  sure 
I  could  not,  but  now  I  am  sorry  I  did  not  venture,  for 
since  then  I  have  motored  over  some  of  the  roads  in  the 
state  of  Maine  and  lived.  If  people  in  Maine  had  that 
Spanish  road  as  far  as  Tarifa  they  would  think  it  the 
superb  Massachusetts  state  road  gone  astray,  and  it 
would  be  thought  a  good  road  anywhere,  with  the  prom 
ise  of  being  better  when  the  young  eucalyptus  trees 
planted  every  few  yards  along  it  grew  big  enough  to 
shade  it.  But  we  were  glad  of  as  much  sun  as  we 
could  get  on  the  brisk  November  morning  when  we 
drove  out  of  the  hotel  garden  and  began  the  long  climb, 
with  little  intervals  of  level  and  even  of  lapse.  We 
started  at  ten  o'clock,  and  it  was  not  too  late  in  that 
land  of  anomalous  hours  to  meet  peasants  on  their  mules 
and  donkeys  bringing  loads  of  stuff  to  market  in  Alge 
ciras.  Men  were  plowing  with  many  yoke  of  oxen  in 
the  wheat-fields;  elsewhere  there  were  green  pastures 
with  herds  of  horses  grazing  in  them,  an  abundance 
of  brown  pigs,  and  flocks  of  sheep  with  small  lambs 
plaintively  bleating.  The  pretty  white  farmhouses, 

named  each  after  a  favorite  saint,  and  gathering  at 

319 


FAMILIAK  SPANISH  TKAVELS 

times  into  villages,  had  grapes  and  figs  and  pome 
granates  in  their  gardens;  and  when  we  left  them  and 
climbed  higher,  we  began  passing  through  long  stretches 
of  cork  woods. 

The  trees  grew  wild,  sometimes  sturdily  like  our  oaks, 
and  sometimes  gnarled  and  twisted  like  our  seaside 
cedars,  and  in  every  state  of  excoriation.  The  bark  is 
taken  from  them  each  seventh  year,  and  it  begins  to 
be  taken  long  before  the  first  seventh.  The  tender 
saplings  and  the  superannuated  shell  wasting  to  its  fall 
yield  alike  their  bark,  which  is  stripped  from  the  roots 
to  the  highest  boughs.  Where  they  have  been  flayed 
recently  they  look  literally  as  if  they  were  left  bleed 
ing,  for  the  sap  turns  a  red  color;  but  with  time  this 
changes  to  brown,  and  the  bark  begins  to  renew  itself 
and  grows  again  till  the  next  seventh  year.  Upon  the 
whole  the  cork-wood  forest  is  not  cheerful,  and  I  would 
rather  frequent  it  in  the  pages  of  Don  Quixote  than  out ; 
though  if  the  trees  do  not  mind  being  barked  it  is  mere 
sentimentality  in  me  to  pity  them. 

The  country  grew  lonelier  and  drearier  as  we 
mounted,  and  the  wind  blew  colder  over  the  fields 
blotched  with  that  sort  of  ground-palm,  which  lays 
waste  so  much  land  in  southern  Spain.  When  we  de 
scended  the  winding  road  from  the  summit  we  came 
in  sight  of  the  sea  with  Africa  clearly  visible  beyond, 
and  we  did  not  lose  sight  of  it  again.  Sometimes  we 
met  soldiers  possibly  looking  out  for  smugglers  but,  let 
us  hope,  not  molesting  them ;  and  once  we  met  a  brace 
of  the  all-respected  Civil  Guards,  marching  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  with  their  cloaks  swinging  free  and  their  car 
bines  on  their  arms,  severe,  serene,  silent.  Now  and 
then  a  mounted  wayfarer  came  toward  us  looking  like 
a  landed  proprietor  in  his  own  equipment  and  that  of 
his  steed,  and  there  were  peasant  women  solidly  perched 

320 


ALGECIRAS    AND    TARIFA 

on  donkeys,  and  draped  in  long  black  cloaks  and  hooded 
in  white  kerchiefs. 


IV 


The  landscape  softened  again,  with  tilled  fields  and 
gardened  spaces  around  the  cottages,  and  now  we  had 
Tar  if  a  always  in  sight,  a  stretch  of  white  walls  beside 
the  blue  sea  with  an  effect  of  vicinity  which  it  was 
very  long  in  realizing.  We  had  meant  when  we  reached 
the  town  at  last  to  choose  which  fonda  we  should  stop 
at  for  our  luncheon,  but  our  driver  chose  the  Fonda 
de  Villanueva  outside  the  town  wall,  and  I  do  not  be 
lieve  we  could  have  chosen  better  if  he  had  let  us. 
He  really  put  us  down  across  the  way  at  the  venta 
where  he  was  going  to  bait  his  horses;  and  in  what 
might  well  have  seemed  the  custody  of  a  little  police 
man  with  a  sword  at  his  side,  wre  were  conducted  to 
the  fonda  and  shown  up  into  the  very  neat  icy  cold 
parlor  where  a  young  girl  with  a  yellow  flower  in  her 
hair  received  us.  We  were  chill  and  stiff  from  our 
drive  and  we  hoped  for  something  warmer  from  the 
dining-room,  which  we  perceived  must  face  southward, 
and  must  be  full  of  sun.  But  we  reckoned  without 
the  ideal  of  the  girl  with  the  yellow  flower  in  her  hair : 
in  the  little  saloon,  shining  round  with  glazed  tiles 
where  we  next  found  ourselves,  the  sun  had  been  care 
fully  screened  and  scarcely  pierced  the  scrim  shades. 
But  this  was  the  worst,  this  was  all  that  was  bad,  in  that 
fonda.  When  the  breakfast  or  the  luncheon,  or  what 
ever  corresponds  in  our  usage  to  the  Spanish  almuerzo, 
began  to  come,  it  seemed  as  if  it  never  would  stop.  An 
original  but  admirable  omelette  with  potatoes  and  bacon 
in  it  was  followed  by  fried  fish  flavored  with  saffron. 

Then  there  was  brought  in  fried  kid  with  a  dish  of 

321 


FAMILIAR  SPANISH  TRAVELS 

kidneys;  more  fried  fish  came  after,  and  then  boiled 
beef,  with  a  dessert  of  small  cakes.  Of  course  there 
was  wine,  as  much  as  you  would,  such  as  it  was,  and 
several  sorts  of  fruit.  I  am  sorry  to  have  forgotten 
how  little  all  this  cost,  but  at  a  venture  I  will  say  forty 
cents,  or  fifty  at  the  outside ;  and  so  great  kindness  and 
good  will  Went  with  it  from  the  family  who  cooked 
it  in  the  next  room  and  served  it  with  such  cordial 
insistence  that  I  think  it  was  worth  quite  the  larger 
sum.  It  would  not  have  been  polite  to  note  how  much 
of  this  superabundance  was  consumed  by  the  three 
Spanish  gentlemen  who  had  so  courteously  saluted  us 
in  sitting  down  at  table  with  us.  I  only  know  that  they 
made  us  the  conventional  acknowledgment  in  refusing 
our  conventional  offer  of  some  things  we  had  brought 
with  us  from  our  hotel  to  eat  in  the  event  of  famine 
at  Tarifa. 


When  we  had  come  at  last  to  the  last  course,  we 
turned  our  thoughts  somewhat  anxiously  to  the  ques 
tion  of  a  guide  for  the  town  which  we  felt  so  little  able 
to  explore  without  one ;  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  had 
better  ask  the  policeman  who  had  brought  us  to  our 
fonda.  He  was  sitting  at  the  head  of  the  stairs  where 
we  had  left  him,  and  so  far  from  being  baffled  by  my 
problem,  he  instantly  solved  it  by  offering  himself  to  be 
our  guide.  Perhaps  it  was  a  profession  which  he  mere 
ly  joined  to  his  civic  function,  but  it  was  as  if  we  were 
taken  into  custody  when  he  put  himself  in  charge  of  us 
and  led  us  to  the  objects  of  interest  which  I  cannot 
say  Tarifa  abounds  in.  That  is,  if  you  leave  out  of 
the  count  the  irregular,  to  and  fro,  up  and  down,  narrow 
lanes,  passing  the  blank  walls  of  low  houses,  and  glimps- 

322 


ALGECIEAS    AND    TARIFA 

ing  leafy  and  flowery  patios  through  open  gates,  and 
suddenly  expanding  into  broader  streets  and  unex 
pected  plazas,  with  shops  and  cafes  and  churches  in 
them. 

Tarifa  is  perhaps  the  quaintest  town  left  in  the 
world,  either  in  or  out  of  Spain,  but  whether  it  is 
more  Moorish  than  parts  of  Cordova  or  Seville  I  could 
not  say.  It  is  at  least  pre-eminent  in  a  feature  of  the 
women's  costume  which  you  are  promised  at  the  first 
mention  of  the  place,  and  which  is  said  to  be  a  sur 
vival  of  the  Moslem  civilization.  Of  course  we  were 
eager  for  it,  and  when  we  came  into  the  first  wide  street, 
there  at  the  principal  corner  three  women  were  stand 
ing,  just  as  advertised,  with  black  skirts  caught  up 
from  their  waists  over  their  heads  and  held  before  their 
faces  so  that  only  one  eye  could  look  out  at  the  strangers. 
It  was  like  the  women's  costume  at  Chiozza  on  the 
Venetian  lagoon,  but  there  it  is  not  claimed  for  Moor 
ish  and  here  it  was  authenticated  by  being  black. 
"  Moorish  ladies,"  our  guide  proudly  proclaimed  them 
in  his  scanty  English,  but  I  suspect  they  were  Spanish ; 
if  they  were  really  Orientals,  they  followed  us  with 
those  eyes  single  as  daringly  as  if  they  had  been  of  our 
own  Christian  Occident. 

The  event  was  so  perfect  in  its  way  that  it  seemed 
as  if  our  guiding  policeman  might  have  especially  or 
dered  it ;  but  this  could  not  have  really  been,  and  was 
no  such  effect  of  his  office  as  the  immunity  from  beggars 
which  we  enjoyed  in  his  charge.  The  worst  boy  in 
Tarifa  (we  did  not  identify  him)  dared  not  approach 
for  a  big-dog  or  a  little,  and  we  were  safe  from  the 
boldest  blind  man,  the  hardiest  hag,  however  pock 
marked.  The  lanes  and  the  streets  and  the  plazas  were 
clean  as  though  our  guide  had  them  newly  swept  for 
us,  and  the  plasa  of  the  principal  church  (no  guide- 

323 


FAMILIAR    SPANISH    TRAVELS 

book  remembers  its  name)  is  perhaps  the  cleanest  in 
all  Spain. 


VI 


The  church  itself  we  found  very  clean,  and  of  an 
interest  quite  beyond  the  promise  of  the  rather  bare 
outside.  A  painted  window  above  the  door  cast  a  glare 
of  fresh  red  and  blue  over  the  interior,  and  over  the 
comfortably  matted  floor ;  and  there  was  a  quite  freshly 
carved  and  gilded  chapel  which  the  pleasant  youth  sup 
plementing  our  policeman  for  the  time  said  was  done 
by  artists  still  living  in  Tarifa.  The  edifice  was  of 
a  very  flamboyant  Gothic,  with  clusters  of  slender 
columns  and  a  vault  brilliantly  swirled  over  with  deco 
rations  of  the  effect  of  peacock  feathers.  But  above 
all  there  was  on  a  small  side  altar  a  figure  of  the  Child 
Jesus  dressed  in  the  corduroy  suit  and  felt  hat  of  a 
Spanish  shepherd,  with  a  silver  crook  in  one  hand  and 
leading  a  toy  lamb  by  a  string  in  the  other.  Our  young 
guide  took  the  image  down  for  us  to  look  at,  and  showed 
its  shepherd's  dress  with  peculiar  satisfaction;  and 
then  he  left  it  on  the  ground  while  he  went  to  show 
us  something  else.  When  we  came  back  we  found  two 
small  boys  playing  with  the  Child,  putting  its  hat  off 
and  on,  and  feeling  of  its  clothes.  Our  guide  took  it 
from  them,  not  unkindly,  and  put  it  back  on  the  altar ; 
and  whether  the  reader  will  agree  with  me  or  not,  I 
must  own  that  I  did  not  find  the  incident  irreverent  or 
without  a  certain  touchingness,  as  if  those  children 
and  He  were  all  of  one  family  and  they  were  at  home 
with  Him  there. 

Rather  suddenly,  after  we  left  the  church,  by  way 
of  one  of  those  unexpectedly  expanding  lanes,  we  found 
ourselves  on  the  shore  of  the  purple  sea  where  the 

324 


ALGECIKAS    AND    TAKIFA 

Moors  first  triumphed  over  the  Goths  twelve  hundred 
years  before,  and  five  centuries  later  the  Spaniards  beat 
them  back  from  their  attempt  to  reconquer  the  city. 
There  were  barracks,  empty  of  the  Spanish  soldiers 
gone  to  fight  the  same  old  battle  of  the  Moors  on  their 
own  ground  in  Africa,  and  there  was  the  castle  which 
Alfonso  Perez  de  Guzman  held  against  them  in  1292, 
and  made  the  scene  of  one  of  those  acts  of  self-devotion 
which  the  heart  of  this  time  has  scarcely  strength  for. 
The  Moors  when  they  had  vainly  summoned  him  to 
yield  brought  out  his  son  whom  they  held  captive,  and 
threatened  to  kill  him.  Guzman  drew  his  knife  and 
flung  it  down  to  them,  and  they  slew  the  boy,  but  Tarif  a 
was  saved.  His  king  decreed  that  thereafter  the  father 
should  be  known  as  Guzman  the  Good,  and  the  fact 
has  gone  into  a  ballad,  but  the  name  somehow  does 
not  seem  quite  to  fit,  and  one  wishes  that  the  father 
had  not  won  it  that  way. 

We  were  glad  to  go  away  from  the  dreadful  place, 
though  Tangier  was  so  plain  across  the  strait,  and  we 
were  almost  in  Africa  there,  and  hard  by,  in  the  waters 
tossing  free,  the  great  battle  of  Trafalgar  was  fought. 
From  the  fountains  of  m'y  far  youth,  when  I  first  heard 
of  Guzman's  dreadful  heroism,  I  endeavored  to  pump 
up  an  adequate  emotion;  I  succeeded  somewhat  better 
with  Nelson  and  his  pathetic  prayer  of  "  Kiss  me, 
Hardy,"  as  he  lay  dying  on  his  bloody  deck ;  but  I  did 
not  much  triumph  with  either,  and  I  was  grateful  when 
our  good  little  policeman  comfortably  questioned  the 
deed  of  Guzman  which  he  said  some  doubted,  though 
he  took  us  to  the  very  spot  where  the  Moors  had  par 
leyed  with  Guzman,  and  showed  us  the  tablet  over  the 
castle  gate  affirming  the  fact. 

We  liked  far  better  the  pretty  Alameda  rising  in 

terraces  from  it  with  beds  of  flowers  beside  the  prome- 

325 


FAMILIAK  SPANISH  TKAVELS 

nade,  and  boys  playing  up  and  down,  and  old  men  sit 
ting  in  the  sun,  and  trying  to  ignore  the  wind  that 
blew  over  them  too  freshly  for  us.  Our  policeman 
confessed  that  there  was  nothing  more  worth  seeing  in 
Tarifa,  and  we  entreated  of  him  the  favor  of  showing 
us  a  shop  where  we  could  buy  a  Cordovese  hat;  a  hat 
which  we  had  seen  flourishing  on  the  heads  of  all  men 
in  Cordova  and  Seville  and  Granada  and  Honda,  and 
had  always  forborne  to  buy  because  we  could  get  it 
anywhere ;  and  now  we  were  almost  leaving  Spain  with 
out  it.  We  wanted  one  brown  in  color,  as  well  as  stiff 
and  flat  of  brim,  and  slightly  conical  in  form ;  and  our 
policeman  promptly  imagined  it,  and  took  us  to  a  shop 
abounding  solely  in  hats,  and  especially  in  Cordoveses. 
The  proprietor  came  out  wiping  his  mouth  from  an 
inner  room,  where  he  had  left  his  family  visibly  at  their 
almuerzo;  and  then  we  were  desolated  together  that  he 
should  only  have  Cordoveses  that  were  black.  But  pass 
ing  a  patio  where  there  was  a  poinsettia  in  brilliant 
bloom  against  the  wall,  we  found  ourselves  in  a  variety 
store  where  there  were  Cordoveses  of  all  colors;  and 
we  chose  one  of  the  right  brown,  with  the  picture  of  a 
beautiful  Spanish  girl,  wearing  a  pink  shawl,  inside 
the  crown  which  was  fluted  round  in  green  and  red 
ribbon.  Seven  pesetas  was  the  monstrous  asking  price, 
but  we  beat  it  down  to  five  and  a  half,  and  then  came 
a  trying  moment:  we  could  not  carry  a  Cordovese  in 
tissue-paper  through  the  streets  of  Tarifa,  but  could  we 
ask  our  guide,  who  was  also  our  armed  escort,  to  carry 
it?  He  simplified  the  situation  by  taking  it  himself 
and  bearing  it  back  to  the  fonda  as  proudly  as  if  he  had 
not  also  worn  a  sword  at  his  side ;  and  we  parted  there 
in  a  kindness  which  I  should  like  to  think  he  shared 

equally  with  us. 

326 


ALGECIKAS    AND    TARIFA 

He  was  practically  the  last  of  those  Spaniards  who 
were  always  winning  my  heart  (save  in  the  bank  at 
Valladolid  where  they  must  have  misunderstood  me), 
and  whom  I  remember  with  tenderness  for  their  court 
esy  and  amiability.  In  little  things  and  large,  I  found 
the  Spaniards  everywhere  what  I  heard  a  Piedmontese 
commercial  traveler  say  of  them  in  Venice  fifty  years 
ago :  "  They  are  the  honestest  people  in  Europe."  In 
Italy  I  never  began  to  see  the  cruelty  to  animals  which 
English  tourists  report,  and  in  Spain  I  saw  none  at  all. 
If  the  reader  asks  how  with  this  gentleness,  this  civility 
and  integrity,  the  Spaniards  have  contrived  to  build 
up  their  repute  for  cruelty,  treachery,  mendacity,  and 
every  atrocity;  how  with  their  love  of  bull-feasts  and 
the  suffering  to  man  and  brute  which  these  involve, 
they  should  yet  seem  so  kind  to  both,  I  answer  frankly, 
I  do  not  know.  I  do  not  know  how  the  Americans  are 
reputed  good  and  just  and  law-abiding,  although  they 
often  shoot  one  another,  and  upon  mere  suspicion  rather 
often  burn  negroes  alive. 


THE   END 


